'It was a bad day for us' – Rashid Khan

Afghanistan arrived at the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifiers as favourites, but after defeats to Scotland and Zimbabwe in their first two matches they are left with an uphill battle in order to make the Super Six round of the competition, and then go on to the final. While Calum MacLeod’s ton undid Afghanistan in their first match, in their second it took a team effort – and some all-round brilliance from Zimbabwe’s Sikandar Raza – to see Afghanistan off.

Afghanistan had done much right in the first half of the day, striking repeatedly to reduce Zimbabwe to 17/3 in the morning. A partnership of 98 between Brendan Taylor and Raza threatened to bring Zimbabwe back into the match, but again Afghanistan surged to bowl the tournament hosts out for 196.

“It was a bad day for us,” said stand-in captain Rashid Khan. “We bowled really well to restrict them to under 200, and the bowlers did their job. We batted well too, until the end. It’s a part of the game, you can’t say anything about it.”

It seemed Afghanistan were cruising towards an easy win when Rahmat Shah and Mohammad Nabi combined to guide them to 156/3 in the 34th over. But Blessing Muzarabani then removed Rahmat for 69, and the match turned on a stunning over from Raza, the Zimbabwean picking up three wickets in six balls as Afghanistan slipped to 169/7.

“We started really well with our batting, with a good partnership in the middle,” said Rashid. “But the one thing we didn’t do well was to finish it off. We couldn’t contain the pressure at that time.”

At 177/9 it seemed the match was almost over, but Afghanistan’s tail rallied to get them to the brink. Dawlat and Shapoor Zadran batted Afghanistan into the final over, when just five runs were needed.

“We had the game until the last over,” said Rashid. “We needed less runs than there were balls to be bowled, and in that situation you always have a chance to win the game. But it wasn’t in our luck to win the game. The tailenders batted so well, batting 10 overs to put us in that position. We were in the game until the end.”

Having lost their first two matches, Afghanistan now face must-win encounters against Nepal and Hong Kong. Rashid insisted that his side still have what it takes to get to the Super Six and beyond, and that they would treat every match from here on in as a final.

“We lost our first two games, crucial games,” he said. “But we still have a chance to get to the Super Six. After this, we will consider every match as if it’s a final.”

“We shouldn’t be thinking about what’s happened, we should come back and play Hong Kong and Nepal, and then move into the next round and consider every match as a final. Our team is capable of beating any team, but this is cricket and this is part of the game. Sometimes it happens that you’re playing good cricket but you’re not getting the result you want. But we’ll bounce back, and we’ll just try to play simple cricket, how we’ve played in the last one or two years and how we’ve been successful. We’ll just focus on that.”