Srinagar: Afghanistan captain Hashmatullah Shahidi has said that his side is confident of making comeback against India after early hiccup in the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup 2023.
Afghanistan are set to clash with India on Wednesday at Arun Jaitely Stadium Delhi in its second match of the World Cup. Ahead of the clash Afghanistan captain gave pre match press conference.
Here is Press Conference Transcript
[Reporter:]
You spoke about making a statement with the bat at the captains meet in Ahmedabad? So, it didn’t go well in the first match. What should you be doing and how difficult is it going to be?
[Hashmatullah Shahidi:]
Yes, I made a statement at the beginning that we will play good cricket as a batting side. We have a good spin bowling attack, but only one department can’t win you games. You have to score runs for that, to win the game. Also in Bangladesh game, I know we didn’t do well batting, but we still believe, I still believe and as a team we have that belief that we can come back in the next game and throughout the tournament, so the belief is there and the talent is there and we will try to move on and make it better and improve in tomorrow’s game.
[Reporter:]
Playing a host nation especially India, in front of the Indian crowd, what have you told your players in how to go about it, especially in a World Cup?
[Hashmatullah Shahidi:]
When it’s the opposition’s home, there will be crowd pressure. Especially in India, there are a lot of expectations that the stadium will be packed but as a team our talks are like we have to make these things simple, and we are used to full stadiums – before also we played in Bangladesh and other countries with fully-backed opposition. We should not worry as players about those things. We have to keep it simple and we need to focus on our own game and try to deliver our own game tomorrow.
[Reporter:]
How has it been working with Ajay Jadeja so far and what kind of inputs is he bringing on the table. What do you guys talk about with him, is it more batting, bowling, match mindset, so how has the experience been working with him?
[Hashmatullah Shahidi:]
It’s good because he has a lot of experience of international cricket and experience of the same conditions, Indian conditions also. So as a mentor, he always talks about how to deal with pressure, how to play against these teams. It’s not about too much technique, because he just came to the team and he can’t work with the techniques of batting, bowling stuff. He just tries to give us talks about mental and how to deal with this kind of team. Yeah, so it’s working well.
[Reporter:]
You just said that even you can’t just win the games on the basis of spin, but even in the spin department, if you see Rashid, teams tend to take a safer route against him – especially in the 50-over format compared to T20s. So, has there been any conversation on that because he is your trump card?
[Hashmatullah Shahidi:]
See, Rashid is the best bowler in ODI and T20s, so whatever opposition is doing, we don’t care about that, like how they play, they want to play Rashid, but for us the important thing is how he has planned against the opposition. So that matters for us.
[Reporter:]
Just to add to that, Rashid hasn’t played a lot of 50-over cricket against the top teams, if you look at his record, is that something that is a concern at all, like what sort of impact do you expect him to have against India for example?
[Hashmatullah Shahidi:]
See, like right now he played a lot in ODIs, like currently we are playing over the last six months we play ODIs so he knows how to bowl and he knows how to bowl to every team. He has the quality and whenever it’s his day he can do anything against the opposition, so we are expecting and we are hopeful that he delivers in tomorrow’s game.
[Reporter:]
[inaudible question]
[Hashmatullah Shahidi:]
Yeah, I have told this at the beginning also. So, we lost the first game against Bangladesh. And it doesn’t mean that we are not a good team. We still have the belief and our statement is the same. We are here to make this World Cup historic for our country and to show to the world. Because in series, if you do well against opposition, good teams, that also matters.
But in events like World Cup, big events, if you beat any team, that’s like better than a series. We are here to play positive cricket and give a statement that we can do well, and also our aim and goal as a team is to achieve a lot in this World Cup because we still have eight games.
[Reporter:]
[inaudible question]
[Hashmatullah Shahidi:]
Do you want me to share that with you? Yeah, we play better spinners in the net sessions. Like if you see Rashid, Nabi, Noor and Mujeeb, we play them every day. So, I think our team is far better in playing spin bowling. So that game you know we struggle but you can’t say that you are not good enough on one game. So that game is gone now and we know we can play spinners better and we will try to come back in next game in every department.
[Reporter:]
This is a long tournament where when you lose multiple games you can go on a roll and get stuck in the middle. So as a captain how important is it for you and the team to get the first win out of the way so that you can play with the confidence from there?
[Hashmatullah Shahidi:]
See this is important as a team, the important thing is when you lose how to deal with that situation – for me and for everyone it’s the important thing. But still, it’s a long tournament we have eight more games, so when you lose if you go down, then that will affect your other games. So as a team, that game is gone from us. Now we are thinking and moving forward and the morale is still not down and we are looking forward to the other games. We have chances to win and that’s inside the dressing room.
[Reporter:]
Afghanistan cricket has evolved very quickly over the last 7-8 years and you have a very special connection with India. It was a home base for your team as well. Many of the players have grown up idealising the Indian superstars here, even they have played in IPLs. How much do you talk about not getting over-awed by these Indian players or not getting star-struck here, especially given what happened between Navin and Virat?
[Hashmatullah Shahidi:]
See, as you mentioned before also, like India is our home, it was our home, we played here and the people of India give a lot of love to Afghanistan people. And what happened in the ground, that aggression comes to every player, it’s not about India and Afghanistan. So, it can come to everyone. So, this happened and still like if you see a lot of our players, we have idols from Indian team like Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid. So, there’s not any concern about that.