Trott: Time to Think Hard About Our Mistakes

Jonathan Trott, the head coach of Afghanistan, stated Thursday that’setback helps to recover’ after the team’s early elimination from the Asia Cup. Afghanistan was among the favourites to get past the group stage, but their campaign was abruptly terminated by consecutive losses to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

In the last Group B match, Sri Lanka defeated Afghanistan by a commanding six wickets to guarantee their spot in the Super 4. While Afghanistan lost despite Mohammad Nabi’s scorching 22-ball 60, which saved them from near collapse to a competitive 169/8, the outcome also validated Bangladesh’s growth.

“It was difficult to accept and really disappointing. After Nabi’s valiant efforts, we felt that 170 was a respectable total and that we were in a strong position. But we kind of helped them with our bowling and fielding, and their hitters did really well.

“They had an advantage since we didn’t start the power play with our bowling. We simply weren’t at the races, and we made too many simple mistakes in the field, bowling and batting. After the match, Trott told reporters, “You can’t win cricket games, especially in tournaments like this, with such errors.”

“I had really high expectations for what we could accomplish when we arrived here. We need to determine why we haven’t been able to accomplish it.

In February, there will be the World Cup among the many T20 cricket events we have planned. All of the coaches, myself included, and all of the players must reflect carefully on our mistakes and how we might improve.

“Sometimes these setbacks can help us regroup and ensure we don’t make the same mistakes in the future.”

Trott went on to say that they were without Naveen-ul-Haq’s services because he was injured and could not compete in the event.

“Possibly, yes (we didn’t get a pace bowler’s service).” Sadly, we missed Naveen; things would have been very different if he had been healthy.

“This is certainly something to look at, and we need to ensure we have the right stock of bowlers.”

Sri Lanka, meanwhile, was happy with how they carried out their plans against the spinners from Afghanistan, according to Kusal Mendis.

Actually, we anticipated that they would bowl a lot of spin overs right from the start. For the first 12 overs, Kusal (Perera) and I primarily discussed batting normally. In fact, Kusal got a few runs after that. As a result, we consistently went at eight or nine runs per over. Because of this, it was quite simple in the middle.

“After Charith, I suggested that we just aim to bat normally till the thirteenth over since they would have to bowl pace overs or whatever in the next few overs. We were therefore anticipating that.

Actually, we are aware that they frequently use spin. Since they must undoubtedly bowl two pace overs, I attempted to prolong the game as much as possible in the middle, i.e., till the final over. I wanted to get a massive over from the spinners there, so I did.

“I was hoping for two overs like that, but Kamindu hit a six and I hit a four in the middle. We talked about that in the middle, so if it happened, it would be simple. Ultimately, we waited until a pace was reached. And to be honest, they have good spinners if you look at their spin attack,” he remarked.