Delhi Police asked for the T20I opener to be moved, and the DDCA said no
Delhi’s traffic police wanted India’s T20I opener against Afghanistan rescheduled because of the BRICS Summit. The DDCA says the match stays where it is, on Sunday at the Arun Jaitley Stadium.
Sep 11, 2026
The first T20I between India and Afghanistan will be played at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Sunday 13 September, the Delhi and District Cricket Association confirmed on Thursday, after the Delhi Traffic Police had asked for the match to be moved.
The request had nothing to do with the cricket. New Delhi is hosting the 18th BRICS Summit from 11 to 13 September, with the leaders’ sessions at Bharat Mandapam in Pragati Maidan, and the police had written to the DDCA questioning whether a match that pulls a five-figure crowd could be run on the evening the summit closes.
Two big events, a few kilometres apart
Bharat Mandapam and the Arun Jaitley Stadium sit only a few kilometres from each other in central Delhi. The DDCA expects 20,000 to 25,000 spectators for the opener, most of them arriving in the two hours before a 7pm start, which is the same window in which delegations would be leaving Pragati Maidan.
The rest of the week gives a sense of the scale. More than 35 roads have been brought under police control, 22 diversion points have been set up, Mathura Road and Janpath are among the stretches closed in short bursts for motorcades, and schools across the capital were shut on Friday.
The DDCA met the traffic police and came away with assurances rather than a new date. Its statement was short and unambiguous: the match goes ahead as scheduled. Nothing was said about a reduced capacity or a later start.
Afghanistan are the hosts, Delhi is the home ground
The series belongs to Afghanistan, not India. All three matches, on 13, 15 and 17 September, are Afghanistan home fixtures staged at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, so only one of the two teams has to travel anywhere.
Ibrahim Zadran leads for the first time since taking the T20I captaincy full time, with Rashid Khan playing under him. Naveen-ul-Haq is back after a stress fracture in his right shoulder that cost him the West Indies T20Is and the T20 World Cup. Mohammad Nabi, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Azmatullah Omarzai, Noor Ahmad and Mujeeb Ur Rahman all feature, which makes this close to Afghanistan’s strongest available T20 side.
What India are using the three matches for
Shreyas Iyer captains, Tilak Varma is his deputy, and Jasprit Bumrah returns to a T20I side for the first time since the World Cup final win over New Zealand in Ahmedabad on 8 March. Bumrah has not played for India since the second ODI in England in July, when a left knee injury ruled him out of the series-deciding third ODI, and he has had no competitive outing since — the Afghanistan series marks his return after fitness clearance at the BCCI Centre of Excellence. Yash Thakur came into the squad this week in place of Harshit Rana, who did not get through his fitness clearance.
The calendar explains the rest. India fly out for a one-off T20I against Japan in Sano on 22 September, and the men’s cricket tournament at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games starts two days after that. The Delhi matches are the last competitive cricket this group gets before a gold medal defence, which is why Bumrah is in a T20I squad at all and why Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is still in one at 15. Sanju Samson and Ishan Kishan are both picked as wicketkeepers, a choice India will have to make rather than rotate once the Games begin.
Afghanistan have a longer score to settle. They have never beaten India in a T20I, and the closest they have come was Bengaluru in January 2024, when the sides tied on 212 and then tied the first Super Over before India won the second. The other unfinished business is Hangzhou 2023, where the Asian Games final between these two teams was abandoned due to rain with Afghanistan 112 for 5 after 18.2 overs, and India were handed gold on ranking. Both squads are in Japan later this month, and the draw could put them back in front of each other.