Afghanistan recovered from 43 for 5, and India knocked it off with 38 balls to spare
Abhishek Sharma’s 82 off 32 balls settled the first T20I in Delhi inside 14 overs, and Jasprit Bumrah and Varun Chakravarthy both came through their first match back.
Sep 14, 2026
India were 82 for 1 after six overs of a 157 chase. Afghanistan had needed until the 15th over to reach 100. That gap is the whole match.
Abhishek Sharma made 82 from 32 balls with seven fours and seven sixes, reached fifty in 22, and was out in the 11th over with the game already gone. India got home in 13.4 overs with 38 balls to spare at the Arun Jaitley Stadium and lead the three-match series 1-0.
Four down in the powerplay, five by the seventh over
Shreyas Iyer put Afghanistan in and Jasprit Bumrah had Rahmanullah Gurbaz caught by Abhishek off the second ball of the match. Ibrahim Zadran was run out for 11 in the fourth over by an Ishan Kishan throw that Axar Patel finished. Sediqullah Atal was caught by Bumrah off Arshdeep Singh, Gulbadin Naib picked out Nitish Kumar Reddy off Axar, and Varun Chakravarthy bowled Darwish Rasooli in the seventh.
That made it 43 for 5, and 41 of those runs had come inside the powerplay. Fourteen of Afghanistan’s first fifty were extras.
Omarzai and Nabi put on 83
Azmatullah Omarzai walked in at 41 for 4 and was still there at the end on 64 off 44. He took 39 balls over his fifty, which tells you how much repair work came before the hitting. Mohammad Nabi joined him and the two added 83 for the sixth wicket, the only stand of any size in the innings.
Arshdeep bowled Nabi for 33 in the 17th over, then had Rashid Khan caught by Axar in the 19th, and Noor Ahmad was run out off the next ball. Arshdeep finished with 3 for 19, Varun with 1 for 16. India’s four frontline bowlers gave up 88 runs in 16 overs between them. Nitish Kumar Reddy, Shivam Dube and Abhishek got through the other four overs for 59 between them. Add 21 extras, ten of them wides, and that is where Afghanistan found a total at all.
A 22-ball fifty and a 121 stand
Sanju Samson went for 10 in the third over, caught off Azmatullah. Abhishek did not read that as a reason to slow down. His fifty came off 22 balls, India passed 100 in the ninth over, and at the drinks break they were 130 for 1 with 27 still to get.
He and Ishan Kishan put on 121 for the second wicket in 53 balls. Kishan made 42 off 33 and was comfortably the more restrained of the two. Nabi eventually had both of them, Abhishek caught by Rashid Khan and Kishan caught by the same man two overs later. Iyer and Tilak Varma saw it through. Abhishek took the player of the match award.
Bumrah and Varun back in the side
This was Bumrah’s first T20I since the World Cup final. He hurt his left knee fielding in Cardiff and missed the third ODI against England and both Tests in Sri Lanka. His four overs cost 26 and brought him Gurbaz, which will do for a first night back.
Varun was also playing his first T20I since that final. He injured his hamstring during the England series in July and was withdrawn from the Zimbabwe tour. His four overs went for 16 and included the wicket of Rasooli.
The second T20I is at the same ground on Tuesday and the third on Thursday. The series is India’s preparation for the Asian Games.