7 November - Mumbai - Afghanistan Coach Jonathan Trott post-match press conference
[Reporter:]
After getting them 91 for 7, what do you say to your team following a result like that?
[Jonathan Trott:]
Well, it's a case of we got ourselves into position and should have capitalised, obviously dropped two chances, and gave a person like Maxwell a chance. He's going to run with it and he almost played with a bit of freedom and almost freed him up a little bit and gave a bit of momentum back to them. I thought, it was a spectacular innings, a world-class innings. But, yeah, we certainly helped him along the way.
[Reporter:]
Obviously, you guys would be feeling really disappointed. You touched on it a bit there, but just taking the emotions and the results out of it, what do you think when you see in innings like that somebody struggling through cramp and all that sort of thing?
[Jonathan Trott:]
Yeah, you know, it was a real good innings. I always think could we have done a few things slightly different, bowled certain areas, different bowlers here or there. Obviously, there are certain things you would like to try different now, but hindsight is a great thing. And so, it's a good lesson, I think, as well for our players, because in this game, if you take your eye off the ball just a little bit and you think too far ahead and you try and start thinking other things instead of just worrying about taking the next wicket, this game can bite you pretty quickly. So, I think obviously it's a disappointing loss, but I think it's an experience for a young side, developing. This is – you know, these sorts of things, make sure that we learn from these sorts of things. And just how cutthroat cricket is at the highest level and how you need to be on your game, not for, you know, 70 overs, but for 100 overs.
[Reporter:]
You still have a match remaining. After today, as you said, cricket obviously can bite you. From here, what are the lessons that your boys should learn from here? And any particular thing that you'd like to tell them? Because obviously these defeats can be shattering to the confidence.
[Jonathan Trott:]
Well, as I said, I think we've all enjoyed the victories and those sorts of things. I said we win as a side and make sure we lose as a side. There's no pointing fingers, there's no blaming, but we just look at it and say well, I said to him, as a bowler, is there anything you would have perhaps now done differently with regards to, in practice, developing a different delivery, would you have perhaps bowled different balls? As long as we learn from it and see how we can get better. But it is difficult to get over the fact that one player's got 200 and the rest of the team have got sort of 80 probably. So that's a difficult thing to understand and the boys are hurting and you'll be certainly wishing they could have it back.
[Reporter:]
How happy are you with Zadran's innings?
[Jonathan Trott:]
Yeah, obviously to get the first hundred and to have a batsman in the last 10 overs was fantastic. We saw how we could accelerate. I think the partnership with Rashid and himself, sort of gave us a bit of a kick, you know, lifted us at the end and kicked us onto a defendable total, which should have been defendable, but yeah, very happy that he got 100. Maybe there's times where he could have accelerated a little bit quicker and maybe gone a bit quicker. But to get your first 100 in a World Cup, he's a fantastic player and a great lad. So, I'm really happy for him and hopefully many more.
[Reporter:]
The team has a lot of youngsters, be it Zadran, Gurbaz, Noor. So, what are the learnings that you would like to give to them? Because such kind of defeats sometimes take a mental toll as well, because they're quite young. And that's when they try to think a lot about such kind of defeats. But what kind of learnings would you like to give to them, given that one important match is left in this tournament ahead?
[Jonathan Trott:]
Well, I said in the meeting now, I just said, this feeling that we got in the dressing room now, is what should scare us about thinking too far ahead and taking the eye off the ball, or perhaps thinking that, not that the games won, but perhaps not doing as well as what got us into the position, having them seven down.
And those sorts of things, they'll be able to pass on about, we obviously gave them two lives. You give any world-class player two lives; he's going to hurt you. So those types of things for the players coming in and the players developing all around the game. It's not just about bowling in the nets. It's about practicing your fielding. Make sure your fielding is improving all the time. Because it's ended up costing us a game today, an important game, the fielding.
So that's a little thing everyone can learn from.
[Reporter:]
So did your boys get a bit relaxed after taking those seven wickets in a very difficult situation, made it difficult for Australia. Did the boys look relaxed a bit?
[Jonathan Trott:]
What about relaxed? I think when, obviously, unfortunately, the second catch went down, everyone just seemed to sort of think - just waiting for him, you know, Maxwell to get out. I didn't see a lot of encouragement or people cheering up each other and encouraging each other. It seemed to sort of like the attitude was a little bit, well, we'll just, hopefully we'll still win type thing. It's not a case of when you get an opportunity against a side like Australia, you've got to grab it. They're not going to just give it to you. And you've got to take it. If you get a chance to take it, you've got to take it. And that's the type of things we'll learn from today and what we just spoke about in the dressing room.
[Reporter:]
During the latter half of Maxwell's innings, when he was down with cramps, do you think they could have done things differently, tactics in terms of different field placements, maybe, so that they could stop the singles and stop the rotating of the strike. Maxwell was already hurting; he was not able to run properly. Do you think they could have been a bit more creative on the field in terms of captaincy and tactics?
[Jonathan Trott:]
Well, he kept hitting boundaries, so, there wasn't really much singles going, so we didn't have to stop the singles. I thought Cummins played well as well, so I'm sure there's a few things maybe one or two things you could have done differently but that's cricket and there's always going to be things you want to have back. But he kept hitting them in the stands, so we can't put fielders in the stands. I wish we could have. But full credit to him, the way that he played to get a double hundred is phenomenal. He deserved to win the game; he got a double hundred.
But certainly, there are a few things we could have done differently.
[Reporter:]
How do you tell your bowlers to bowl to a guy like Maxie who can just conjure up a shot out of nowhere - Just reverse flick a ball and sort of...
[Jonathan Trott:]
Well, yeah, that's what I mentioned earlier, you know, could we have tried maybe wider Yorkers when he was cramping up, could we have done things differently? I just saw the same delivery over and over again, which is... Yeah, but You've got to remember that he was hitting all, guys were changing pace, he was hitting that, you know, spinners were bowling different lengths, he was hitting that. Sometimes you've got to take a cap off to a person the way that he played, but he shouldn't have been allowed to play like that. We should have had him out earlier.
[Reporter:]
Were you surprised with the DRS decision?
[Jonathan Trott:]
Yeah. Well, he was walking off, wasn't he? So, he didn't expect it to be going over. So, yeah, we would love that to have been hitting.
[Reporter:]
One match to go, still you have an offside chance of making it to the semi-final. After such a defeat what does it take to lift up the team and having spent so much time with this team, how do you think the South African team will react to the defeat?
[Jonathan Trott:]
Be Resilient. We lost the New Zealand game pretty heavily and came back and won the next game.
We lost the India game very heavily. Came back and beat England – so yeah there is evidence of us coming back. No time to muck around, we’ve got to pick ourselves up and learn from the experience. And there's some great learning points for the guys going forward. But yeah, it's a bitter pill to swallow. It would really be nice just sitting here with 10 points. But hopefully that's after the South Africa game.
