Cricket World Cup 2019: Poor shot selection a big worry for Afghan captain

London: The Afghanistan team started off with great promise but their poor batting has pulled them down in all the three matches. They had a good start against New Zealand when their openers put on 66 runs but then collapsed and crashed to 172 all out.

Afghanistan captain Gulbadin Naib candidly admitted that his team has not able to get a good partnership going. “We started really well in the beginning. Hazrat (Hazratullah Zazai and Noor Ali (Zadran) played well but after that, like I’ve been saying, we needed small partnerships from our batsmen, which we have been missing out.”

Naib is aware that a 50-over game cannot be played in this manner and one cannot keep wasting overs. “We must aim to play out the entire 50 overs. Yes, we did play some bad shots and ultimately lost many overs,” he said, referring to his team’s innings ending in 41 overs.

When asked if he was able to pinpoint the exact problem with his team, he noted that it was poor shot selection. “We threw away our wickets due to our bad shots.”

The Afghan skipper revealed that all his players are trying their best but unfortunately have not been successful. “We played three games already and every player is putting in his best on the ground. But this is tough cricket and all teams are tough. We need to get the momentum back soon.”

Naib hopes for just one big win and that should do the trick for his team to go on. “We lost three games, yet our morale is still high. We need one good match and then things will work for us,” is his strong belief.