Follow Us“Well, I certainly feel that that is what's needed. I think that's the only thing really stopping this team is doing the basics really well and that's consistency,” Afghanistan’s head coach Jonathan Trott was brutal in his assessment of their loss against New Zealand.
Afghanistan got the basics horribly wrong during their clash against the BlackCaps in Chennai on Wednesday (October 18). Having put the BlackCaps to bat first, Afghanistan had an early opportunity to make the score 1/1, but a simple drop in the slips by their skipper Hashmatullah Shahidi was an indication of a long night.
While Chepauk has been a notorious venue for catches dropped in the tournament, Afghanistan’s poor display could only be attributed to their own carelessness. Over the course of the innings, Afghanistan fielders dropped six catches and allowed New Zealand to get to 288 after restricting them to 110/4.
“So, if we had taken our catches and put New Zealand under pressure like we should have, I think you'd be looking at, not saying it would have changed the results as a fact, but you would have been looking at a very different performance,” Trott added.
“I think if we had taken those (catches) and with the wicket of Conway, we would have been in a much better position as well. Not only like they were, I think they were about 116 for four at one stage, if I'm not mistaken. So, we would have been in an even better position had we held on to those catches. But it wasn't to be and unfortunately, we have to go home regretting those tonight,” he added.
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Something that has been a recurring theme with Afghanistan’s bowling tactics is the late introduction of Rashid Khan into the attack. Yet again, the leg-spinner wasn’t introduced until the 15th over, when he struck with the vital wicket of Daryl Mitchell. Trott insisted that it was a move to allow Rashid to bowl with the older ball.
“Well, just waiting until the state of the balls when Rashid feels like he can grip it because he obviously needs to bowl or spin it both ways and when the ball is not as new and not as slippery. So, it's at that sort of stage,” he added.
Trott pressed upon the fact that Afghanistan needed to the simple things more regularly and religiously and insisted that these are the things that show up when teams are under pressure.
"And that starts with the mindset of doing the things that seem really simple, but doing those day in, day out, regularly, and religiously. It's always standing in good stead, because they're generally the things that will look after you when you're out there under pressure. And that's what's exposed us today, unfortunately,” Trott insisted.
Afghanistan, thus far in the competition, have always opted to bat first and put the opposition under scoreboard pressure. But in Chennai, their move to bowl first was influenced by the general patterns at the venue. Trott reckoned that batting first could have put them in a better position.
"Well, yeah, we looked at the previous two games and it's starting to do up a little bit now. So, yeah, it's something we probably could have done better and I certainly think it's not a score that we got bowled out for, 136 I think it was, something like that," he added.
"But yeah, we could have perhaps looked at batting first, but I'm not saying that it would have completely changed the result, but there are certain things that if we had done better, we would have put ourselves in a much better position."