This one performance doesn’t necessarily define the tournament, Afghanistan head coach Jonathan Trott maintained after his side’s fairytale campaign in the ongoing ICC men’s T20 World Cup ended in an anti-climatic fashion with a nine-wicket drubbing at the hands of South Africa in the first semifinal at Trinidad on Thursday.
Afghanistan enjoyed a dream run throughout their campaign, beating top sides like New Zealand and Australia, before securing their maiden semi-final spot in a men’s World Cup with a thrilling win against Bangladesh in their final SuperEight clash on Tuesday.
On Thursday, South African pacers dominated the proceedings immediately after Afghanistan captain Rashid Khan opted to bat on winning the toss. Azmatullah Omarzai (10) was the lone Afghan batter to get to double figures even as the entire team folded up for mere 56 runs in 11.5 overs. For the Proteas, pacer Marco Jansen and left-arm wrist spinner Tabraiz Shamsi bagged three wickets apiece while Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje picked two wickets each.
In response, South Africa lost Quinton de Kock early but Reeza Hendricks (29 not out) and Aiden Markram (23 not out) ensured that the Proteas reached their maiden T20 World Cup final without any more hiccups in 8.5 overs.
“If you told us we would be playing the semi-final against South Africa, we would accept that. Next time when we participate in a tournament like this, we will have the belief,” said skipper Rashid Khan after the semifinal loss.
While professional cricketers are expected to perform irrespective of the scheduling of the tournament, if one has a closer look at Afghanistan’s itinerary, especially after Tuesday’s win, it would make one wonder if the team had enough time to recover well enough for a big semi-final the next evening.
Coach Trott didn’t want to make it as an excuse while analysing the team’s performance, but expected his team to get used to such odds during major tournaments, even as the team is expected to be more hurt than proud in the immediate aftermath of the loss to the Proteas on a brutish track with excessively uneven bounce.
“Obviously playing the last group game and then playing the first semi-final with travel yesterday and getting here and not really having a day off isn’t ideal. But we knew the schedule, so that’s not an excuse as such. When you go on in World Cups or tournaments, you can’t have everything your own way, and you’ve got to fight and play against the odds which you’ve done at times and very proud of that but no, it’s not the reason why we didn’t win today,” Trott said.
“We only got back to hotel at 3am, and then we had to leave (for Trinidad) at 8am. We didn’t get much sleep, so the guys were obviously very tired and had a lot to process really emotionally and physically. So all new territory for the guys and it all plays its part in a way, but we were outplayed today. The guys hopefully learn from this experience. We’ve gone one better than the previous 50-over World Cup in November, and it’s just about taking it step by step, and hopefully we learn from today, the batters certainly (about) what it takes to play international cricket and play against a bowling side like South Africa on a pitch that’s perhaps not conducive to high scoring, finding ways of winning games. And we’ve found ways of winning games, we just couldn’t find a way today,” he added.
Trott candidly admitted that the team needed to work on their batting when he was asked if they were looking at the overall achievement more than this defeat.
“Maybe in a couple of weeks’ time, when everything’s sunk in and your emotions aren’t in it. Once you’re in it and part of a World Cup and you’ve been here for over five weeks preparing for a night like tonight, I think it’s sort of hard to think like that, but I’m sure we will in a couple of days or a week or so.”
“So, it’s important that a match like this doesn’t overshadow all the good matches we had that got us to this situation or this position. But it’s nice if we can just find other ways of winning with the bat. That’s what I take and that’s what I’ll be working on from tomorrow,” he said.
Trott stated that he was proud of the effort put in by all the players, the coaching staff and management during this campaign, and one performance doesn’t necessarily define the tournament.
“Whenever you lose a game like this, it’s always going to hurt. And it should hurt because we put so much into it. The sacrifices made by the players, coaching staff, management, officials all that sort of stuff. It hurts at the moment,” he said.
“We arrived to the ground in high spirits ready to take on a strong South African side and make sure we gave a good account of ourselves, and I feel like we haven’t done that today. That’s the most disappointing thing. I’m very proud of the guys; this one performance doesn’t necessarily define the tournament. But it also gives us an indication of where we need to work on and what we need to get better at. If we’re going to be competitive more consistently, and who we can rely on with the bat and who’s going to get us over the line, certainly if we have to chase,” he said before signing off.