VIDEO COURTESY: ICC
Rashid Khan (Afghanistan Captain) pre-match Press Conference - 21st June 2024
[Reporter:]
Do you think Suryakumar thwarted your plans or your players did not play to the roles that they were assigned? But how happy are you with the performance?
[Rashid Khan:]
Well, I think we started very well with the ball. But in the middle, when Surya came, that's how he plays. He changed the tempo of the game, and he tries to play his shots. And I think that's something which makes him the unique player. He believes in his skills. It doesn't matter wherever he plays, whatever the condition is, that's how much belief he has on his skills. I think it's the same thing as we have in the batting, especially top order, I think that makes the job easy for us as well, where you don't really think about the wicket a lot. You think about your own skills, how you're going to use your skills in this condition, and what team requirement is. I think then the job becomes a little bit easier. Sometime I feel like we have played very much pre-planned shots, which did cost us the game. And against the lower teams, it does work. But against the bigger teams, I don't think so it does work. And that's the only thing I feel we need to learn, that we just need to stay and react. And that's how it is important. You're facing a quality bowling like Bumrah. I think he's very smart. And if you're having those pre-planned shot against him, I think that's where he gets the success. So that's a kind of learning for us. And we hope we don't repeat that in future.
[Reporter:]
Rashid, at times, do you feel that your team or your bowling attack is slightly too over-dependent on you? And the second thing is, if the pitch is similar, do you think it probably plays to your hands against Australia, who looks to play top-gear cricket, and we have seen how close they came to losing to you in Bombay during the ODI World Cup?
[Rashid Khan:]
Well, I think there is few players very early for them in the international cricket and they will learn from it. And World Cup is always the biggest stage when you're playing against the biggest team as well. But the more important thing is when you are under pressure how you make yourself very calm and that all comes from the clear mind. And sometimes you do think like, it might doesn't go your favour, he might hit the boundary, and that's where you get hit. I think the more positive mindset we keep against the bigger side and the more we keep ourselves very calm and cool, that's where you start performing and delivering the best for the team. But also, against a bigger team, you don't need to have so many plans and that's something which does affect your performance. You need to be very clear with a couple of plans, what is very effective on a certain pitch on wicket and how you're going to bowl in that and keep it simple. If batsman is playing good shots, you can't do anything about that. But if he's playing one good shot and you're giving three extra boundaries with that, that is something which when the panic starts.
So, for us it's learning and this bowling unit as well we will try our best to come back with the strong mindset and definitely this wicket was 170-180 wicket, but in some areas if you would have bowled well, we might have restrict him 150-155. So that's the kind of bowling unit we have, if the wicket is 170-180, you have the quality in the bowling lineup which we can restrict our position in 15 to 20 runs lesser than that. But as I said, it's World Cup. Young bowlers, they do get under pressure. But it's all about learning. And we keep getting better.
[Reporter:]
Your middle order, do you think it's a little concerned? Because as you said, someone should pick it up like Surya or Pandya in India. Similar thing, it's too much dependency on the top order. If they don't click, then the pressure comes on the middle, and they're not able to take that pressure and release it by playing the good middle overs. So, do you think there's a concern in that on you need to work on this middle, especially in this World Cup I'm talking?
#indiancricketteam #teamindia #indiancricket #bleedblue #sky #suryakumaryadav #afghanistancricket #afghanistan #afghanistancricketteam #afghancricket #afghancricketteam #cricket #cricketlover #cricketlover #cricketnews #cricketshorts #cricketlovers #crickethighlights #cricketfans #cricketfever #cricketer #cricketvideo