Rashid Khan happy to finish the job for a change

For the best part of the group stage of the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2018, Afghanistan looked like they had no chance of making it to the Super Sixes, leave alone qualifying for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019. It came down to the fag end of the first round, they did their bit with a win over Nepal and then Nepal did them a good turn by beating Hong Kong, and now Afghanistan have beaten the big boys of the tournament, Windies, to throw their hat right in the middle of the mix.

Afghanistan are still outsiders, with just two points in their kitty and two games left, and a lot has to go right for them – and in terms of other results – for them to be in the United Kingdom come 2019, but there are signs that the Afghanistan everyone knows is coming to the party.

“Win against a big team, West Indies … feeling really happy. The way we didn’t play well in the first round but it feels very happy to come and finish off … which we were missing in the first round. We didn’t quite finish off well,” said a beaming Rashid Khan, the Afghan captain, after Afghanistan beat Jason Holder’s men by three wickets.

“Happy with the way the boys did their job, especially in the bowling. The first part was very good – they restricted a big team, West Indies, to 200 (197/8). It is always a big achievement. They did really well. Hopefully, inshallah, we’ll continue this performance.”

The bowling effort Rashid refers to was led by young Mujeeb Ur Rahman, the 16-year-old spinner who sent back Chris Gayle for 1 early on, and then came back in the last ten overs to account for Jason Holder and Shai Hope.

Mujeeb has been given the responsibility of bowling with the new ball in both limited-overs formats by Afghanistan, and he has been doing a stellar job: 30 wickets from 12 one-day internationals and 38 from 19 List A games. At the qualifiers, he has had returns of 2/47, 3/49, 3/26, 1/24 and, against Windies, 3/33.

“I am used to it, bowling with the new ball, so I am happy,” he said after winning the Player of the Match award against Windies. “During net practice, I use the new ball, so it’s easy for me and I have worked with the new ball [so as ] to bowl in the Powerplay.”

Despite Mujeeb’s performance, and the small target Afghanistan were faced with, the chase got tricky for them as they went from 132/3 to 168/6. They finally went over the line courtesy Rashid (13*) and Sharafuddin Ashraf (7*) with 14 balls in hand, and Rashid admitted to feeling jittery.

“It was a very nervous moment, because we lost two games in the same way in the first round,” he said. “So it was nervous. But I just tried my best to keep playing till the end, doesn’t matter how many balls were left but we have to play till 50 overs and let’s see the result. We played well and finished the game.”

Holder, whose Windies had stormed into the Super Sixes with four wins on the trot and a maximum possible four points in the bag, felt Windies didn’t take their chances, especially on the field.

“We let ourselves down, probably fell short of our target – probably 230 was a par score on this track, and we dropped one or two chances on the field,” he said.

“Our fielding – I thought we really let ourselves down in the fielding. We had laid a pretty good foundation (158/4 in the 41st over) and we had wickets in hand so we were able to launch, but it didn’t come off today. Credit must go to the Afghan bowlers, I thought they bowled really well and the captain was there at the back-end of the innings.”

For Windies, they are still in a good position to push for a berth in the final, while the win has made the Afghanistan team hopeful. Two more wins will give them six points. Whether that will be enough or not remains to be seen, of course. “Anything can happen in cricket. What we are going for is to win the other matches and let’s see whatever the result is,” he said. “We’ll try our best to do well and there is lots of opportunities in the group for us to go into the final. Let’s hope for the best.”