CHENNAI: Afghanistan are out of the ongoing T20 World Cup due to their inconsistency and inability to up the quality of their game when required in close encounters.
The usually-cheerful Rashid Khan, captain of the team, cut a sorry figure. He believed that his team tried their best but at times, their combinations did not work and they failed to click as a unit.
Going into the marquee event, the hopes would have been high for Afghanistan in potentially making it to the Super Eights at least as the matches are being played in the sub-continent conditions where they have good experience.
But it's been a highly disappointing campaign for Afghanistan as they lost to both New Zealand and South Africa. It was the latter which proved a real killer, coming out on the wrong end of a second Super Over. Despite beating UAE, that success unfortunately proved to be too little, too late. Now, they will be playing for pride when they face Canada in a what is dead rubber contest.
Canada haven't managed to win a game so far in Group D and Afghanistan are the clear favourites to win at Chepauk on Thursday evening.
Afghanistan have a lot of variety in their bowling, especially in the spin department headed by Rashid, plus all-rounder Azmatullah Omarzai is also in splendid form. He picked up seven wickets in his last two appearances including a four-wicket-haul against UAE. Many expect Afghanistan to experiment since it's their last game. But Rashid insisted that his team will not take Canada for granted.
"I feel tomorrow (Thursday) we need to do something different. I think it's still the same game, the same cricket we have to play. And there are no big changes, you know, you can't take any team lightly like you want to experiment with things. I think we have to do what we have been planning. You know, I think we go with the same mindset, how we went against South Africa and against New Zealand and against any other team," said Rashid.
The ace spinner, who has 700 wickets in T20 cricket, said that his team's overall campaign was good. "So, overall if you look, I feel we played some good cricket, especially the game against South Africa. A couple of Super Overs and you can't really say that things went wrong for us. I think it's just a matter of ending up on the losing side in that game, which was a very important game for us. We were given an opportunity to be in the next round, but I feel like you have to be smart in a tough situation," said Rashid.
"I think we haven't taken smart decisions when we are under pressure. And I feel like that's something which went wrong for us. Game against New Zealand, we were under pressure, we haven't taken the smart decisions, the important decisions at that time. Same against South Africa, I think when a team is under pressure, I feel like we lose our way in which in T20 it's very hard to come back from that. So, I feel like those are the things we need to improve while coming back against, playing against the big teams in the future," added the magical spinner.
The experienced pro felt that playing two top teams inside four days was a tough proposition. "Well, I feel, you know, this time it was a little bit different compared to us starting up. You have to play two best sides, you know, New Zealand and South Africa in four days. You have to be like, you don't have any mistake to make, any mistake which takes you out of the competition. And I feel like that's what happened to us. You know, we were a little bit like, you know, playing back-to-back two games in a row against big teams. And in the close game against South Africa, we didn't cross the line to be on the winning side. But, you know, that's what T20 is all about. You can't really like, take a back seat, relax a little bit."
"There will be, you know, pressure situations where you have to come across and then you can go ahead. I feel like to be in the Super 8, you have to go across and beat some big teams to be there. And then to be in the Semi-Final, you have to beat bigger teams," he noted.
In their previous game against New Zealand, Canada put up a challenging score but their bowlers were pedestrian and could not contain the Kiwi batters' march towards victory.
Dilpreet Bajwa, captain of Canada, insisted that they were one bowler short in Kaleem Sana and that's one of the big reasons they couldn't put up a better fight. The Canada attack must step up as Afghanistan, too, have some exciting stroke makers. Bajwa said that his team will go all out and express themselves against Afghanistan as they have nothing to lose.
"We have our last game, so nothing to lose, always to win. So I think we're going to go with full stretch and we're going to do well against Afghanistan, hopefully," said Bajwa