Mirwais Ashraf: Afghanistan have improved every day since their last World Cup appearance
- Afghanistan made their Cricket World Cup debut at the 2015 edition
- Beating Scotland in 2015 felt like winning the World Cup
The ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019 is nothing short of history for Afghanistan.
It’s such a big honour for us to participate in the World Cup for the first time as a full ICC member. We feel proud and this means a lot to us as a nation.
I was part of the first Afghan team to play at the World Cup four years ago, and that was a very special moment for myself and the team.
For as long as I live, I’ll never forget the moment Shapoor Zadran hit the boundary with three balls left to beat Scotland, our first win at a World Cup. We celebrated like we’d won the tournament!
It was a dream come true in 2015, and not one we ever thought would happen. It proves dreams can come true.
In the four years since, the team have achieved a lot in all three forms of the game. We are improving day-by-day and learning a lot from the top teams around us.
Now, the Afghanistan team is in very good form and at an exciting stage of their development.
They have earned a spot to play at these mega ICC major events. I believe now we are in a position to beat the full member nations.
From my point of view, we are targeting two or three victories at this World Cup.
We can beat any team in this competition. We can beat the world’s strongest teams because we have a very good bowling attack.
Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Mohammad Nabi and Dawlat Zadran, in these players is the strength of our team. Spin bowling is the key for us.
Mujeeb is very familiar with English conditions, he played in county cricket, and so have Rashid and Nabi. They are very used to the weather and the conditions.
Wherever they have played in the world in international cricket, these players have performed very well and they will impress fans in this tournament.
We have changed our captain quite recently, with Gulbadin Naib replacing Asghar Afghan a few weeks ago.
I like what I see from Naib as a leader. It’s very close to the World Cup to make a change, but we beat Pakistan in the warm-up match and Naib’s captaincy was very aggressive.
Asghar is still in the squad – he is very capable, a good leader, and will be one of the senior guys who can help our captain navigate the competition. I hope he does a great job for our country.
The Afghan people back home are feeling happy, they are feeling proud as the team make history.
A lot of people expect very little from Afghanistan, but our people expect so much from this team. They believe we will beat England, Australia and India. They are searching on that level.
It’s possible, and why not? We have beaten Sri Lanka, Bangladesh in the Asia Cup and tied against India.
Our nation is a crazy nation. People pray so much for the cricket team in thankfulness for our achievements.
The Afghan crowd is coming to the stadiums, too. They are coming to support, fly the flag and cheer on their heroes.