India batter Tilak Varma has been ruled out of the remaining two T20Is against New Zealand as he is yet to regain full fitness. Notably, he had recently underwent an abdominal surgery and thus, had been out of action for the past few games. Though Tilak has resumed physical training and is making steady progress at BCCI's Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Bengaluru, he won't be able to regain full fitness in time for the remaining two T20Is.
Iyer to remain with the team
Tilak will link up with the Indian team in Mumbai on February 3 once he has regained match fitness ahead of the side's warm-up match for the 2026 T20 World Cup. In his place, Shreyas Iyer will continue with the team for the remainder of the series. He didn't feature in any of the first three games and it remains to be seen if he will be given an opportunity in the remaining two matches.
Though Tilak won't be featuring in the remaining matches against New Zealand, he is expected to be available by the time India begin their T20 World Cup campaign. Their first match of the tournament will be against USA on February 7 at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai.
Sundar out of action as well
Another Indian player who hasn't been able to participate in the New Zealand T20I series due to injury is Washington Sundar. The all-rounder had sustained a rib injury during the first ODI against the Kiwis and had been replaced by Ayush Badoni in the squad. He had then been ruled out of the five-match T20I assignment and is now in a race against time to regain full fitness by the time the T20 World Cup begins.
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India's squad for 2026 T20 World Cup: Suryakumar Yadav (c), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Sanju Samson, Shivam Dube, Ishan Kishan, Hardik Pandya, Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Rinku Singh.