Captain Rashid Khan believes Afghanistan reaching the T20 World Cup semi-final for the primary time after spectacular wins over New Zealand and Australia is a major achievement that may encourage the youth of this conflict-ridden nation. Afghanistan, who turned a full member of the ICC solely in 2017, made historical past by qualifying for his or her first T20 World Cup semi-final with a win over Bangladesh. “I believe the semi-final can be an enormous inspiration for the youth in Afghanistan. The Afghanistan crew has reached the semi-final for the primary time,” Rashid mentioned within the post-match press convention.
He mentioned, “Now we have executed this on the Beneath-19 stage, however we’ve got not executed it at this stage. Even within the Tremendous-8, we entered for the primary time after which additionally reached the semi-finals.”
Moments after the win, images of excited followers celebrating Afghanistan's historic achievement started circulating on social media.
With this achievement, Afghanistan have proven how a lot progress they’ve made within the white-ball format. In final 12 months's ODI World Cup, they defeated defending champions England and former winners Sri Lanka and Pakistan. They continued their spectacular kind within the T20 World Cup as nicely, defeating heavyweights like New Zealand and Australia.
Rashid mentioned, “The form of cricket we’ve got performed all through the event to date, I believe we should be within the semi-finals. The way in which everybody took duty to enter the sport and do their greatest for the crew.”
“So, I don't understand how I can specific my feeling however reaching the semi-finals is a superb achievement for us as a crew and as a nation and now we’re wanting ahead to the semi-finals.” The Afghanistan cricket crew is a bunch of people who’ve honed their expertise by enjoying in T20 leagues world wide. However after they come collectively to play for his or her nation, it’s arduous to discover a extra passionate group.
Afghanistan have discovered an excellent head coach in former England cricketer Jonathan Trott, who retains the crew balanced along with his calm and composed manner.
The result’s that the individual's self-confidence will increase.
“For me, there isn’t any good crew or dangerous crew. Each crew is the same as one another. So long as we take the fitting choice on the proper time, that makes the distinction. So other than that, skill-wise, I believe everyone seems to be equal,” Rashid mentioned.
Touching speech by Afghanistan captain.
– Rashid Khan is in T20Is. pic.twitter.com/Q9DDafG8sL
— Johns (@CricCrazyJohns) June 25, 2024
They are going to face an unbeaten South African aspect within the semi-finals. However the Proteas have struggled at occasions within the event, notably towards Nepal, who faltered within the last moments and misplaced by one run.
“Nicely, any crew you watch on TV all the time provides you that form of inspiration and defending these small scores, you get to be taught loads from it, and positively the best way Nepal carried out all through the competitors was value watching,” he mentioned. “They’ve performed nice cricket towards all of the groups they’ve performed towards. And that's what T20 is all about. It is best to have that form of confidence that we’re able to beating any crew supplied we do the fitting issues on the proper time and we make sure that we preserve issues easy.”
There was a second in the course of the match towards Bangladesh when Gulbadin Naib dramatically fell on his again and grabbed his thigh after Trott signalled the gamers to decelerate. However minutes later, the all-rounder not solely returned to the sector but in addition took the wicket of Tanzim Hasan, main many former gamers and commentators to query the genuineness of his discomfort.
However Rasheed tried to downplay the incident.
“Nicely, he had some cramps, I don’t know what occurred to him and I don’t know what’s occurring in social media however it doesn’t matter – it’s only a matter of him getting damage on the sector on the finish after which we didn’t lose any overs, the rain got here and we simply went on, it’s not one thing that made an enormous distinction to the sport.
“We got here again on the sector 5 minutes later and there wasn't an enormous distinction. For me, it's like if you happen to get a small harm, it’s important to take a while off.”
(This story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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