T20 World Cup: Quite excited to play India in a day match, says coach Trott | News

Afghanistan head coach Jonathan Trott believes his team is a stronger unit in a day match and expects his high-spirited team to optimize conditions against a formidable India in their opening Super 8 match here on Thursday.

Afghanistan enter the Super 8s with plenty of confidence, having won three of their four league matches, including one against New Zealand. Their only defeat came against West Indies earlier this week.

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Day games actually suit us better. So I’m quite excited to play India in a day game. Obviously they are one of the favorites and that has obviously increased the pressure on India,” the former England Test batsman said.

He does not feel that Afghanistan can be labeled as an underdog anymore.

“…and hopefully we can come in, obviously seen as underdogs, but in my mind not as underdogs at all and fully prepared and ready for the battle that awaits us tomorrow, which I’m very excited about,” Trott said on Wednesday.

Afghanistan, who came close to a semi-final berth at the ODI World Cup in India last year, are a stronger force in the shortest format. All the big teams are wary of them and Trott sees that as a compliment to his unit.

It’s a compliment, but also deserved. We’ve had, as you see in the IPL, a lot of players playing a lot of T20 cricket around the world and now it’s about bringing that together as a team. I think we’ve had some good individual players in the past, but we need all those players playing together as one team.

Spinners have traditionally been Afghanistan’s strength but in this tournament, left-arm pacer Fazalhaq Farooqi was their standout bowler and currently tops the wicket-taker charts.

If you have the spinners with the experience of T20 cricket like we do, I think you would clearly say that this is one of our strengths, yet one of our Seamers is a leading wicket-taker in the tournament. So I think we’ve definitely seen a more rounded side in recent years. So if it swings and seams we can take wickets, if it turns hopefully we can take wickets too.

India and Afghanistan played a thrilling double Super Over in Bengaluru earlier this year. Recalling the match that India narrowly won, Trott added: What I take away from the match is that we should have won it, in that super over. But whatever I take away, it shows how the gap is closing in terms of our side, the ability that our players need to have to be able to chase in T20 cricket as well.

That was a fantastic chase in Bangalore and unfortunately we didn’t win. To pass up a second Super, I’m not sure that’s ever happened before.