Afghanistan had their second win in the World Cup 2023 edition on October 23 with an impressive 8-wicket victory against Pakistan.
Jonathan Trott’s inspiring dressing room speech
Afghanistan is scheduled to play against Pakistan at MA Chidambaram Stadium. Choosing to bat first, Babar Azam led the side to score 282 runs for 7 in 50 overs. Noor Ahmad who made his World Cup debut dismissed three wickets and had the best bowling figures by an Afghanistan spinner in World Cup debut.
With the openers Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran scoring 65 and 87 runs, Rahmat Shah and Shahidi completed the match with their impressive knock of 77* and 48* respectively. After their win, the Afghanistan coach Jonathan Trott praised his side through his dressing room speech.
In a video shared by the Afghanistan Cricket Board Trott said, “There’s a lot of emotions, a lot of passion. That’s great. Let’s just make sure we enjoy tonight. Make sure we look after each other. Let’s make sure we enjoy this. Let’s take the confidence from this. Enjoy tonight. I think Nabi. 10 overs for 31. Well, done. Noor, first World Cup game three wickets, well done.”
“Our batters, I thought the way that we started, Ibrahim and Gurbaz I thought that was outstanding. That’s world-class batting. You guys played cricket shots. That’s what we’ve got. We’ve got a lot of talent. If we just apply ourselves in the way that Rahmat and the skipper played,” he added.
“Yeah. there are things to work on. And if we can get those sorts of little things right, that will help us win games like this more often and more consistently. But let’s make sure we take this confidence and this belief in this change room now and the happiness and we apply to every time we train and every match we play from here on it. Very excited for you boys. I’m very happy, very excited. Very proud,” Trott concluded.
After the match presentation, Captain Hashmatullah Shahidi said, “This win tastes nice. The way we chased was very professional. Looking forward to the other games. The way we chased today, we’ll do it again. The quality cricket that we have been playing for the last couple of years, the belief was there when we were playing the Asia Cup also.
At the start of the tournament, I said that we wanted to make this tournament historic for our country people. First was England, today Pakistan, looking forward for the other games. We’ll try our best to play positive cricket and do a lot for our country in this World Cup,” he concluded.
Afghanistan will be playing their next World Cup match against Sri Lanka on October 30 at Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium.
