Will make nation proud, Super 8s or not: Rashid
Afghanistan’s fate in qualifying for T20 World Cup Super Eights stage is not in their hands even after beating UAE here on Monday, but captain Rashid Khan said his team wants to make the country proud with its brand of cricket even if it makes an early exit from the tournament. After Afghanistan’s five-wicket win over UAE, South Africa made it to the Super Eights from Group D with six points from three matches.
New Zealand, currently with four points from three matches, can seal the second spot from the group if they beat Canada on Tuesday in Chennai. In that scenario, Afghanistan — currently on two points from three matches — will exit from the tournament even if they defeat Canada in their last group match on February 19 in Chennai.
“Hoping for the best. Yes, (we) still have a little bit of hope, we can make it to the next stage and we just need to come up with a positive mindset (against Canada),” Rashid said at the post-match presentation. “Next game, you never know, it’s a T20 game, we’ll have to come up with a good brand of cricket. Even if we don’t make it to the next round, we want to play with the same brand of cricket and make the country and our people proud and happy.”
The star spinner is happy that his side at least opened account in the tournament after suffering a heart-breaking loss to South Africa in a game that was decided in the second Super Over. “Happy to finish with a win, it’s important to have points in a T20 World Cup. To restrict them (UAE) under 160 was a good effort, we pulled things back, but we didn’t do well in the first 10 overs. That’s been a problem for us in all the games and something we need to work on,” he said.
“We know how aggressive he (Rahmanullah Gurbaz) is. He goes out with a positive mindset - it doesn’t always work, but it’s good for the team when he gets going. We’ve quite a lot of experience, Azmat (Azmatullah Omarzai) has played a lot, (Mohammad) Nabi is the most experienced guy in the team. It’s always good to have experience and that’s something most important.”
Player of the Match Omarzai, who returned 4/15 from four overs and hit 40 not out off 21 balls, said he only tried to bowl the hard lengths and hit the pitch hard. “I was trying to bowl in the hard length and hit the pitch hard. “It was funny, first ball was a wicket, but the ball didn’t didn’t carry. I took four wickets again. That first wicket got the momentum for us.
“When I went to bat, I looked at the scoreboard. There were a lot of balls (left) for us. We needed to play straight and rotate the strike and I was speaking to my partner, (to) just play straight and we were waiting for the bad ball. “It was a good game where everyone did really well and everyone did hard work (on the South Africa game), but the result did not work our way, but we came back really well and hope we will do it again in the next match.”
UAE captain Muhammad Waseem said his team was short by 10-15 runs while batting. “To be honest, it was a good game. Boys fought well. We were short by 10-15 runs. We lost two early wickets, but the way Alishan (Sharafu) and Sohaib (Khan) batted was good. Ali got out at the wrong time and we fell short by 10-15 runs.
“With the ball, we gave 2-3 extra boundaries and that cost us the game. We wanted to fight till the last ball, we were hungry for victory, excellent effort in the field by the boys. Last game against South Africa, it’s a different ball-game, we’ll come prepared to show the world our talent.”
