New Delhi, February 15 – Afghanistan captain Rashid Khan admitted that narrow defeats, such as the recent double Super Over loss to South Africa in the Men’s T20 World Cup, never leave your mind, and he recalled the heartbreak experienced in the 2023 ODI World Cup when Glenn Maxwell’s unbeaten 201 led Australia to victory in Mumbai.
“Honestly, it’s very difficult. It’s very hard to lose a game where we had control at times, and then it slips away from you, and it disappoints you. That particular game, in particular, never leaves your mind.
“Like, the game we played against Australia in the 2023 World Cup in Wankhede, it never leaves your mind, until we won against them in the 2024 (T20) World Cup, and then it gradually fades from your mind,” Rashid told reporters ahead of Afghanistan’s clash with UAE in Group D at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Monday morning.
Defeats against South Africa and New Zealand have put Afghanistan on the brink of early elimination from the tournament, despite their semi-final appearance in 2024. However, Rashid remains optimistic about Afghanistan’s chances of progressing to the Super Eights.
“It’s quite disappointing. We worked hard for this for the past year and a half. The most important thing is the mindset we had and the effort we put in. I think that remains important. It will help us not only in the upcoming games, but also in the future cricket we play.
“So, there are many positive things we can take from those two games, but still, we don't know what will happen. The other day, Zimbabwe beat Australia, so we hope and let's see if we get a chance, but more importantly, in the last two games, we have to put in all our effort,” he added.
Rashid further stated that the lack of regular matches against leading nations like South Africa and New Zealand had left them ill-prepared for high-pressure contests. “I don’t think much has gone wrong. We played good cricket and were a little unlucky. You saw the last match, we were very close, and we were in the second Super Over. I think that shows that we put in the effort.
“But as a team, if you don’t get a chance to play against a big team, that’s what happens. If we had played more T20Is against South Africa and New Zealand, we would have had an idea of where this team can beat us and where we can do better. If you play with them once a year, and that too in a World Cup event, that’s a time when you don’t have the opportunity to make mistakes.
“If you play two matches in four days against New Zealand and South Africa, then your World Cup can end in four days, and that happened to us. We lost both the matches in four days and are mostly out of the World Cup. So, this pressure is different. You have to be mentally and physically prepared. If you make a small mistake, you're out of the competition. If you look at it, that's one thing, but more importantly, the biggest thing is to play more.
“If you play with them, you'll get an idea. If you don't play, then they'll come with new plans every time, which you don't know how to play against. Like we saw with New Zealand, they came with an aggressive mindset. Imagine if we had played a series with them before and we knew what their mindset would be if they lost a couple of early wickets.
“We weren't expecting them to come out so hard at that time, but they did, and they succeeded. So, nothing else. The more we play against them, the better we'll get, not only in the World Cup, but also in bilateral series,” he concluded.
