NEW DELHI — He batted through it. On the night RCB defended their IPL title against Gujarat Titans in Ahmedabad, Virat Kohli was visibly struggling between the wickets in the final overs. He ran on instinct, finished unbeaten on 75 off 42 balls, and guided his franchise to a five-wicket win. Nobody called it a farewell to white-ball fitness. It was supposed to be a prelude.
That hamstring did not recover in time. Kohli has been ruled out of all three matches of India’s home ODI series against Afghanistan, the BCCI confirmed Wednesday, citing the injury he sustained during that final. The series begins June 14 at the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium in Dharamsala.
The confirmation came through PTI citing a BCCI source. No official timeline for his return was provided. The severity of the injury, and whether it threatens his availability for India’s broader home season that follows, remains unspecified — a silence from the board that tends to lengthen with each passing day without a scheduled fitness test.
Rohit Sharma’s situation carries a different kind of uncertainty. He was included in India’s ODI squad when selectors announced it in May, but his place was conditional on clearing a fitness assessment. The 39-year-old also picked up a hamstring injury during IPL 2026, missed six Mumbai Indians matches, returned to score a muscular 84 off 44 balls against Lucknow Super Giants, then finished the tournament without further alarms — or so it appeared. BCCI sources confirmed to multiple outlets Wednesday that his participation in the Afghanistan series is now doubtful.
Both Kohli and Rohit retired from Test cricket before the current World Test Championship cycle and from T20 internationals after India’s 2024 T20 World Cup triumph in Barbados. ODIs are what remain of their international careers. The Afghanistan series was their first scheduled opportunity to appear in Indian whites since Rohit led the team to the Champions Trophy title in March 2025, a gap of more than a year.
Shubman Gill captains India in both the one-off Test, which begins at New Chandigarh on June 6, and the subsequent three ODIs. Shreyas Iyer serves as his deputy in the 50-over format. The IPL 2026 final that now shadows this series saw Kohli amass 675 runs across the tournament at an average of 56.25 and a strike rate of 165 — a season that had rekindled the debate over whether he could sustain that hitting tempo in ODIs. He will not get the chance to answer it here.
When selectors named the ODI squad last month, ESPNcricinfo reported that chief selector Ajit Agarkar said both Rohit and Hardik Pandya were “on track” for the series, based on assessments from the team physios. Pandya, who missed four IPL matches with back spasms, was expected to spend roughly a week at the NCA in Bengaluru before joining the squad. Whether Rohit completes the same process and arrives fit before the first ODI remains the live question as of Wednesday.
What the absences do, practically, is widen the door for the next generation. The selectors named three uncapped players in the ODI squad — Harsh Dubey, Gurnoor Brar, and Prince Yadav — and the Afghanistan series, always likely to serve as a selection trial ahead of the Asian Games in September and the 2027 World Cup cycle, now has fewer established names to obscure the emerging ones. KL Rahul holds the wicketkeeping role. Nitish Kumar Reddy and Washington Sundar provide the all-round depth. Kuldeep Yadav leads the spin attack.
The fitness concerns around Rohit have shadowed Indian cricket since mid-IPL. His hamstring flared in April, and the question at the time was whether he would return at all for Mumbai Indians — he did, and impressively. But managing a hamstring through the sprint-intensive demands of T20 cricket and presenting it match-fit for the sustained running of ODIs across multiple formats in three weeks is a different calculation. The BCCI medical staff will make that call.
The three-match series visits three venues: Dharamsala on June 14, Lucknow on June 17, and Chennai on June 20. Afghanistan, under Hashmatullah Shahidi, has developed as a formidable limited-overs unit since their historic Test status was formalised — their spin attack in particular presents challenges that Gill’s younger batting order will need to solve without its most experienced problem-solvers.
Kohli’s absence removes a variable that was genuinely contested. The question of his place in India’s long-term ODI planning ahead of the 2027 World Cup — the next 50-over showpiece, scheduled in South Africa in October 2027, a cycle ESPNcricinfo notes both veterans are still formally part of — has not been quietly settled. It has only been deferred. The hamstring will heal. What comes after is the part nobody in Indian cricket has agreed on yet.
