• last year
Afghanistan coach Jonathan Trott rued missed opportunities as his side suffered defeat to Australia at the ICC Cricket World Cup as Glenn Maxwell hit a brilliant 200 despite batting on almost 1 leg
Transcript
00:00 Jonathan, hard luck. After getting them 91 for 7, what do you say to your team following a result like that?
00:08 Well, it's a case of we got ourselves into position and should have capitalised.
00:13 We obviously dropped two chances and gave a person like Maxwell a chance.
00:18 He's going to run with it and he almost played with a bit of freedom and almost freed him up a little bit
00:22 and gave a bit of momentum back to them.
00:24 I thought spectacular innings, world-class innings.
00:31 But we certainly helped him along the way.
00:34 Hi Charlie, obviously you guys would be feeling really disappointed.
00:39 You touched on it a bit there, but just taking the emotions and the results out of it,
00:43 what do you think when you see in innings like that somebody struggling through cramp and all that sort of thing?
00:48 Real good innings. I always think we could have done a few things slightly different, bowled certain areas,
00:55 different bowlers here or there.
00:57 Obviously there are certain things we would like to try different now, but hindsight is a great thing.
01:04 It's a good lesson I think as well for our players.
01:09 I think because this game you take your eye off the ball just a little bit.
01:14 You think too far ahead and you try and start thinking other things instead of just worrying about taking the next wicket.
01:22 This game can bite you pretty quickly.
01:25 I think obviously it's a disappointing loss, but I think it's an experience for a young side developing.
01:31 These sorts of things, make sure that we learn from these sorts of things.
01:36 Just how cutthroat cricket is at the highest level and how you need to be on your game.
01:44 Not for 70 overs, but for 100 overs.
01:50 Jonathan, you still have a match remaining.
01:54 After today's game, like you said, cricket obviously can bite you.
02:00 From here, what are the lessons that your boys should learn from here and any particular thing that you'd like to tell them?
02:06 Because obviously these defeats can be shattering the confidence.
02:10 As I said, I think we've all enjoyed the victories and those sorts of things.
02:14 I said we win as a side and make sure we lose as a side.
02:17 There's no pointing fingers, there's no blaming.
02:21 But we just look at it and say, as a bowler, is there anything you would have perhaps done differently with regards to,
02:32 in practice, developing a different delivery?
02:35 Would you have perhaps bowled different balls?
02:38 As long as we learn from it and see how we can get better.
02:41 But it is difficult to get over the fact that one player's got 200 and the rest of the team have got 80, probably.
02:53 So that's the difficult thing to understand.
02:56 The boys are hurting and you'll be certainly wishing they could have it back.
03:01 Jonathan, how happy are you with Zadran's inning?
03:05 Yeah, obviously to get the first 100 and to have an inboundsman in the last 10 overs was fantastic.
03:12 We saw how we could accelerate.
03:14 I think the partnership with Rashid and himself sort of gave us a bit of a kick.
03:20 It lifted us at the end and kicked us onto a defendable total, which should have been defendable.
03:28 But yeah, very happy that he got 100.
03:31 Maybe there are times where he could have accelerated a little bit quicker and maybe gone a bit quicker.
03:37 But to get your first 100 in a World Cup, he's a fantastic player and a great lad.
03:43 So really happy for him and hopefully many more.
03:46 So the team has a lot of youngsters, be it Zadran, Gurbaz, Noor.
03:55 So what are the learnings that you would like to give to them?
03:58 Because such kind of defeats sometimes take a mental toll as well because they're quite young.
04:03 That's when they try to think a lot about such kind of defeats.
04:07 But what kind of learnings would you like to give to them, given that one important match is left in this tournament ahead?
04:13 Well, I said in the meeting now, I just said the feeling we have in the dressing room right now
04:20 is what should scare us about thinking too far ahead and taking a half the ball.
04:25 Perhaps thinking that, not that the games won, but perhaps not doing as well as what got us into the position, having them seven down.
04:37 So those sorts of things, learning about, they'll be able to pass us on about, we obviously gave him two lives.
04:45 You give any world-class player two lives, he's going to hurt you.
04:48 So those types of things for the players coming in and the players developing all round with the game.
04:54 It's not just about bowling in the nets, it's about practising your fielding, make sure your fielding is improving all the time.
04:59 Because it's ended up costing us a game today, an important game, the fielding.
05:03 So that's a little thing everyone can learn from.
05:08 So did your boys get a bit relaxed after taking those seven wickets in a very difficult situation, made it difficult for Australia?
05:16 Did the boys look relaxed a bit?
05:19 What about relaxed? I think when, unfortunately, the second catch went down, everyone just seemed to think,
05:25 just waiting for Maxwell to get out. I didn't see a lot of encouragement or people geeing up each other and encouraging each other.
05:36 It seemed to be like the attitude was a little bit, 'We'll hopefully still win' type thing.
05:43 Not a case of, when you get an opportunity against a side like Australia, you've got to grab it.
05:49 They're not going to just give it to you. If you get a chance to take it, you've got to take it.
05:52 And that's the type of things we'll learn from today and what we just spoke about in the dressing room.
05:57 During the latter half of Maxwell's innings when he was down with cramps,
06:03 do you think your team could have done things differently, tactics-wise, in terms of different field placements maybe,
06:12 so that they could stop the singles and stop the rotating of the strike?
06:18 Maxwell was already hurting, he was not able to run properly.
06:21 Do you think they could have been a bit more creative on the field in terms of captaincy and tactics?
06:27 He kept hitting boundaries. There wasn't really much singles going, so we didn't have to stop the singles.
06:34 I thought Cummins played well as well. I'm sure there's a few things, maybe one or two things, we could have done differently.
06:43 But that's cricket and there's always going to be things you want to have back.
06:48 He kept hitting them in the stands, so we can't put fielders in the stands. I wish we could have.
06:54 Full credit to him, the way he played to get a double hundred is phenomenal.
06:59 He deserved to win the game and get a double hundred. But certainly there are a few things we could have done differently.
07:06 How do you tell your bowlers to bowl to a guy like Maxwell who can conjure up a shot out of nowhere?
07:16 Just reverse flick a ball?
07:18 I mentioned earlier, could we have tried wider Yorkers when he was cramping up?
07:24 We could have done things differently. I just saw the same delivery over and over again.
07:30 You've got to remember that he was hitting all, guys were changing pace, he was hitting that.
07:36 Spinners were bowling different lengths, he was hitting that.
07:40 Sometimes you've got to take a cap off to a person the way that he played.
07:44 But he shouldn't have been allowed to play like that, we should have had him out earlier.
07:48 Were you surprised with the DRS decision?
07:50 He was walking off, wasn't he? He didn't expect it to be going over.
07:54 We would have loved that to have been hitting.
07:59 One match to go, you still have an offside chance of making it to the semi-finals.
08:11 After such a defeat, what does it take to lift off a team and having spent so much time with this team?
08:18 How do you think they will react to the South Africa game?
08:22 The guys have been resilient. We lost the New Zealand game pretty heavily and we came back and won the next game.
08:32 We lost the India game pretty heavily, we came back and beat England.
08:36 So there is evidence of us coming back.
08:39 This will be a difficult one to swallow.
08:41 The good thing in a way is that we play quite soon, we travel, practice and then play.
08:46 We have a few days in between games.
08:48 So there is no time to mope around, we have to pick ourselves up and learn from the experience.
08:53 There are some great learning points for the guys going forward.
08:58 It is a bit of a pill to swallow.
09:01 It would really be nice to be sitting here with ten points.
09:05 Hopefully that is after the South Africa game.

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