Hashmatullah Shahidi on Afghanistan must-win world cup game with South Africa
Hashmatullah Shahidi on Afghanistan must-win world cup game with South Africa
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00:00 How has the last couple of days been after the defeat against Australia?
00:12 How has been the mood in the camp?
00:14 How was the whole day today?
00:15 I'm sure you guys had an eye on the proceedings in Bangalore as well.
00:20 Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.
00:23 Yeah, that win was, lost was, you know, very disappointing for us as a team.
00:31 Everyone was disappointed because, you know, sometimes these kind of things happen.
00:38 And it happened with us.
00:42 It was hard, you know, like we were not expecting when they were seven down and Maxwell played
00:52 the innings of his life, I think.
00:55 So we were not expecting that he will win the game from us after that seven wickets.
01:04 But still, it's part of the game, part of the life.
01:09 In cricket, anything can happen.
01:13 And for us as a team, it gives a lot of lessons that lost.
01:18 And importantly, these things happen, but the good thing is you have to learn from it.
01:25 It gives you learning and we will try our best to learn from the last game.
01:31 Mahashmukh, just to build on from that question, I'm interested to know, you know, it must
01:39 have been a heavy atmosphere in the dressing room.
01:43 But who kind of lightened the mood, who kind of made it light and, you know, bringing the
01:52 focus on tomorrow's match and what was said after that?
01:58 As I said, that it was not easy as a team for all of us, you know.
02:04 The way it happened with the team, with us, not easy.
02:09 But still, we are in the World Cup and we have one important match tomorrow of this
02:18 World Cup.
02:19 And as a team, we discussed about it yesterday that we have to now move forward and don't
02:29 think too much about what happened.
02:32 Because if you think about it, it will, as a team, your team's morale will go down with
02:38 that.
02:39 So, as I said, that we will learn from it and now it's the part of the history, it's
02:46 gone.
02:47 We have to move forward and think about tomorrow's game.
02:50 And we will try as a team to come back stronger and win it from there, inshallah.
02:58 Ashputtada, you're from a country that is often in the headlines for negative reasons.
03:05 But you've given Afghans and Afghanistan lots of reasons to be proud of you in this tournament.
03:11 How does that make you feel, you and your players?
03:14 As a team, we feel proud.
03:16 We are happy that what we did in this World Cup.
03:21 But as a captain, you know, I wanted and I expected more.
03:27 We should have done better.
03:28 And especially in the last game, you know, if we beat Australia, that would be a good
03:37 achievement for us.
03:38 But now, still, we have one game and if we finish that well, we still have a chance for
03:45 the semifinals.
03:47 So we are hopeful and anything can happen.
03:51 And we must believe that.
03:55 Looking forward and still, like what happened, we are feeling proud in this World Cup as
04:02 a team and as a nation.
04:04 Hello, Osman.
04:06 As you said, you would have expected better things.
04:14 So you are in a very good position against New Zealand.
04:16 You had almost defeated Australia.
04:19 But a few dropped catches in both the games cost you the game.
04:21 So has there been any discussion around this thing in the dressing room?
04:27 Yeah.
04:30 When you lose, you know, it's a lot of negative things and a lot of things happening in the
04:44 ground.
04:45 You know, you have to think about that.
04:49 In this World Cup, I think one part that we are not good enough in it is the fielding.
04:55 You know, like we dropped so many catches.
04:57 And in the New Zealand game also, that drop catches hurt us.
05:03 Especially the last game in Australia, that dropped chances that we had.
05:09 That was the reason, you know, if we took that, so the result in the senior would be
05:16 far different than now.
05:20 But still I say that everything is happening in cricket and you have to learn from it.
05:29 And especially the catching that we missed, now we have to improve our fielding moving
05:35 forward to take the Afghanistan cricket as a best fielding side.
05:41 Hashmat, you've only played South Africa once before in an ODI and they've gone pretty well
05:46 at this tournament apart from maybe the last game.
05:50 What are you expecting from them?
05:51 What kind of challenge do you think they'll pose and what areas of weakness do you think
05:55 you can exploit?
05:58 Them or us?
06:01 Them.
06:02 I know they are a good side and they played quality cricket.
06:06 But coming into this World Cup, every team is a challenge for you and every game is a
06:12 big challenge.
06:14 Like coming to the World Cup, it's not easy for the teams to come to the World Cup, play
06:20 the World Cup.
06:21 So tomorrow is one of the challenges that we are facing.
06:24 We faced eight games that was also a challenge for us as a team.
06:29 Now tomorrow is South Africa.
06:32 It will be challenging for us.
06:34 They are a good side, they are a good betting side and also they have good bowling attack.
06:39 So we have to not worry about that because for us it will be our own strength and our
06:47 own quality of cricket that we are playing.
06:49 We are focusing on that and tomorrow our focus will be the same that what we can do better.
06:58 And if we do well, we can beat any team.
07:02 So tomorrow's focus will be there.
07:06 Have you any game plan to defeat South Africa after four successful wins?
07:11 Yes, we are planning for every team but if you want to share me here, do you mean I should
07:22 share it here with you, the plans?
07:29 Hello, Hasmut.
07:35 Hasmut, Ajay Jadeja is the mentor of your team.
07:43 How much support do you get?
07:46 How much support do you get?
07:50 Yeah, he is part of the team.
07:52 He is part of the coaching staff.
07:54 So he is working hard with us and as I mentioned before also that he is one of the positive
08:02 guys I have ever seen.
08:05 So he is always trying to give us positive thoughts about the game and he knows about
08:11 the conditions here.
08:13 So we take that experience from him.
08:23 To continue improving in the 50-over game, do you find, I mean it's a weird situation
08:34 where you have gotten really good now at 50-overs but when we look at the next cycle, the number
08:40 of 50-over games are starting to reduce.
08:42 So how does a country like Afghanistan, a team like Afghanistan continue to improve?
08:47 The number of 50-over matches are reducing year by year.
08:52 So how does a team like Afghanistan, a country like Afghanistan continue to improve if the
08:56 number of matches are reducing?
09:02 I think like for that question, we have cricket board and management so we are hoping that
09:13 they take a lot of series with other teams and Champions Trophy is also ahead.
09:22 There will be cricket of 50-overs, I am expecting that.
09:26 I hope that ICC also make a good role on it because 50-over cricket is also important.
09:37 Right now too many leagues, too many T20 cricket and I think with that 50-overs and test cricket
09:46 is more important.
09:47 So if we have that games, we will definitely improve more and we are expecting our cricket
09:54 board and ICC to give us more matches for our improvement.
09:58 [BLANK_AUDIO]