This is the maiden international call-up for Nigam, who first came into the limelight during IPL 2025. Playing for Delhi Capitals, he took 11 wickets from 14 games in that season at an economy rate of 9.12 and also scored 142 runs at a strike rate of 179.74.

Varun, meanwhile, suffered the injury in his very first game after returning from a hamstring issue. Initially, he was ruled out of the remainder of the Afghanistan series and was expected to travel for the Asian Games. But that is no longer the case.

In Varun’s absence, Axar Patel and Ravi Bishnoi are likely to be India’s first-choice spinners with Washington Sundar and Nigam available as back-ups.

India’s updated squad for the Japan T20I and Asian Games

Shreyas Iyer (capt), Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Shivam Dube, Tilak Varma (vice-capt), Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Yash Thakur, Vipraj Nigam