India vs Afghanistan T20I Head-to-Head: Record & Results
By CricketTaken EditorialPublished Cricket in India8 min read
Eight Twenty20 internationals, seven India wins and one tie that India won in a super over. Afghanistan have not beaten India in this format, and they have not beaten them in any format: the one Test, the four one-day internationals and these eight matches have all gone India's way or, in two cases, ended level.
The two level games are the interesting ones. Afghanistan tied a fifty-over match with India at the 2018 Asia Cup, and on 17 January 2024 at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru they tied a Twenty20 international that then needed two super overs to settle — the first match in international cricket of any format to go that far.
Five of the eight meetings have come at global tournaments, one at an Asia Cup and three in a bilateral series played in India in January 2024. Afghanistan have never hosted India, which is a function of their own circumstances rather than of any reluctance on India's part: Afghanistan's home matches are staged in India and the United Arab Emirates, and Greater Noida and Dehradun were their designated home grounds for several years.
All eight matches
| # | Date | Venue | Competition | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 May 2010 | Beausejour, Gros Islet | World T20 group | India 116/3 (14.5) beat Afghanistan 115/8; India by 7 wickets |
| 2 | 19 Sep 2012 | R Premadasa, Colombo | World T20 group | India 159/5 beat Afghanistan 136; India by 23 runs |
| 3 | 3 Nov 2021 | Sheikh Zayed, Abu Dhabi | T20 World Cup Super 12 | India 210/2 beat Afghanistan 144/7; India by 66 runs |
| 4 | 8 Sep 2022 | Dubai | Asia Cup Super Four | India 212/2 beat Afghanistan 111/8; India by 101 runs |
| 5 | 11 Jan 2024 | Mohali | 1st T20I | Afghanistan 158/5; India 159/4 (17.3); India by 6 wickets |
| 6 | 14 Jan 2024 | Holkar Stadium, Indore | 2nd T20I | Afghanistan 172; India 173/4 (15.4); India by 6 wickets |
| 7 | 17 Jan 2024 | Chinnaswamy, Bengaluru | 3rd T20I | India 212/4 tied with Afghanistan 212/6; India won the second super over |
| 8 | 20 Jun 2024 | Kensington Oval, Bridgetown | T20 World Cup Super Eight | India 181/8 beat Afghanistan 134; India by 47 runs |
Afghanistan have batted first in four of the eight and chased in four, and the pattern of the results does not depend on which: their two closest finishes came once in each role.
Bengaluru, 17 January 2024
The scores finished level twice in the same match. India batted first and made 212 for 4, Rohit Sharma making 121 not out from 69 balls with eight sixes and Rinku Singh 69 not out from 39; the two of them added 190 for the fifth wicket. Rohit's hundred was his fifth in Twenty20 internationals, more than anyone had made at the time.
Afghanistan came within two runs of it and then took two off the last ball. Gulbadin Naib made 55 not out from 23 balls at the end of the innings, and Afghanistan finished on 212 for 6 with the scores level.
The first super over was tied as well: Afghanistan made 16, India made 16. In the second, India made 11 for 2 with Rohit hitting all the runs off the first three balls, and Ravi Bishnoi then conceded one run and took two wickets. It is the only international match to have required two super overs, and it is Afghanistan's best result against India in any format.
Whether the second super over should have been played at all was argued about afterwards, since Rohit had been dismissed in the first super over and batted again in the second, which the playing conditions permitted but which struck a number of observers as unfair. The regulation was not changed by it.
The two biggest India innings
Dubai, 8 September 2022, produced the largest margin in the fixture: 101 runs. Virat Kohli made 122 not out from 61 balls, his first century in international cricket for 1,020 days, and KL Rahul 62; the pair added 119 and India finished on 212 for 2. Afghanistan replied with 111 for 8, Ibrahim Zadran 64 not out of it. That Asia Cup match was a dead rubber — India had already been eliminated from the Super Four — which is part of why the innings mattered to Kohli more than to the tournament. The edition as a whole is on the 2022 Asia Cup page.
Abu Dhabi, 3 November 2021, was similar in shape and slightly smaller in scale: India 210 for 2, Afghanistan 144 for 7, a 66-run win. It was India's only convincing performance of a 2021 T20 World Cup in which they failed to reach the semi-finals, and it came a week after the ten-wicket defeat by Pakistan that had already effectively ended their campaign.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar's 5 for 4
The most extreme individual return in the fixture is a bowling one. In that Dubai match, Bhuvneshwar Kumar took 5 for 4. Five wickets for four runs, in a Twenty20 international, chasing nothing — Afghanistan had already lost the game to Kohli by then, but the figures stand on their own as one of the most economical five-wicket hauls recorded in the format.
Nothing else in the fixture is close to it. Afghanistan have not taken a five-wicket haul against India in the format at all, and their best bowling days against them have been about containment rather than wickets — which, given that India have twice passed 210 in these eight matches, has not been easy to come by either.
What Afghanistan have got closest to
| Match | How close | What happened next |
|---|---|---|
| Bengaluru, Jan 2024 | Scores level after 20 overs; first super over also tied | India won the second super over |
| Indore, Jan 2024 | Afghanistan made 172, their highest total against India | India chased it in 15.4 overs |
| Mohali, Jan 2024 | Afghanistan made 158 for 5 batting first | India chased with 15 balls to spare |
| Gros Islet, May 2010 | Afghanistan 115 for 8 on their tournament debut | India chased in 14.5 overs |
The January 2024 series is the only time Afghanistan have posted competitive totals against India in consecutive matches. Their 172 at Indore is their highest against India in the format, and India chased it down with more than four overs unused, which is the honest measure of the gap at that point.
Shivam Dube was player of the series after making 60 not out at Mohali and finishing as the leading run-scorer, and the series doubled as India's last Twenty20 assignment before the World Cup they went on to win. It was also Rohit Sharma's first Twenty20 international since the 2022 World Cup semi-final; he returned to the format for it and captained India to the title five months later.
Where these matches have been played
| Country | Matches | India won |
|---|---|---|
| India | 3 | 2 (plus one tie won in a super over) |
| United Arab Emirates | 2 | 2 |
| Sri Lanka | 1 | 1 |
| West Indies | 2 | 2 |
Three in India, five outside it, none in Afghanistan. Afghanistan gained full membership of the ICC in 2017 and Test status with it, and they have played their designated home fixtures in India and the UAE throughout; the one Test between the sides, in June 2018, was staged at Bengaluru with Afghanistan as the visiting side. The Test and one-day ledgers are on the India versus Afghanistan Test record and India versus Afghanistan ODI record pages.
The two matches in the West Indies are the fixture's bookends at global level: Gros Islet in 2010, Afghanistan's first appearance at a World Twenty20, and Bridgetown in June 2024, a Super Eight match India won by 47 runs on the way to the 2024 T20 World Cup title. Between those two, Afghanistan went from a side making up the numbers to one that beat Australia in the same 2024 tournament and reached the semi-finals — the first Afghanistan side to do so at a men's World Cup, in either format.
Reading a one-sided ledger
Eight matches, no defeats. India's record is complete, and eight matches is one of the smallest samples of any India Twenty20 fixture against a full member, so the ledger should be read with that in mind rather than as a settled hierarchy.
The direction of travel matters more than the score. Afghanistan's totals against India have gone 115, 136, 144, 111, 158, 172, 212, 134 — and the 212 came in a chase they nearly completed. India have not lost, but the margin of the last completed bilateral matches was narrower than any of the global-tournament results that preceded them.
Rashid Khan has spent much of his career bowling to these Indian batters in the Indian Premier League rather than against them for Afghanistan, and Mohammad Nabi, Naveen-ul-Haq and Rahmanullah Gurbaz have all had long IPL careers too. That familiarity runs both ways, and it is one reason the fixture has stopped being a formality even though the results have not yet changed. The state of the wider Indian game around it is on the cricket in India hub.
Sources and method
Each of the eight results comes from the published scorecard for that match, with the global-tournament fixtures cross-checked against ICC records and the Dubai match against the Asian Cricket Council record for the 2022 Asia Cup. Dates given are the scheduled date of play.
Individual figures quoted — Rohit Sharma's 121 not out from 69 balls, Rinku Singh's 69 not out, Gulbadin Naib's 55 not out from 23, the 16 apiece in the first super over and India's 11 for 2 in the second, Kohli's 122 not out from 61, Rahul's 62, Ibrahim Zadran's 64 not out and Bhuvneshwar Kumar's 5 for 4 — are all taken from those scorecards.
Statements about which record a performance set at the time, such as Rohit's fifth Twenty20 international century, are given as they stood on the date of the match and may since have been passed. The list of Afghanistan totals in the closing section is simply the eight scorecards read in order. Nothing here is derived from ball-by-ball data. Current to 27 August 2026.