Afghanistan’s T20 World Cup campaign is hanging by a thread after that extraordinary double-Super-Over loss to South Africa in Ahmedabad. Two chances to win slipped away and, with earlier defeat to New Zealand, Rashid Khan’s side must now beat the UAE in Delhi and still hope for outside help to reach the Super Eight.
The captain is trying to keep heads clear. Straight after landing in the capital, Rashid explained that the mood is more “family kitchen” than dressing-room autopsy.
“We were in Ahmedabad and we told the manager to order food. Peshawari food: their dal bukhara, dal makhani, I told him to order that and bring some tandoori chicken so that we can vent our anger on that,” he laughed. Not every team meeting needs a whiteboard.
The key message, delivered between mouthfuls of butter-laden dal, was about responsibility – or rather the shared version of it. “No one should say that he did this or he did that because it brings negativity in the team,” Rashid said. “No one has lost, just our team has lost. We put in a lot of effort, but we never blame any player for being in a Super Over. I always tell everyone that as a captain I don’t want to hear any of these things. It disappoints me more than the game when you’re blaming the players. We all put in the effort.”
That effort had them level after 40 overs, then level again after a first Super Over that produced 28 runs apiece. Eventually David Miller nicked the single that mattered and Afghanistan’s bench sank into their seats. A place in the next phase is almost certainly gone.
“To be honest, it’s pretty hard,” the leg-spinner said, revisiting the closing moments. “It’s very, very hard to lose that game where we had it in our hand a couple of times and then it just slips off your hand and it disappoints you. It doesn’t go away from your mind. Like, the game we played against Australia in the 2023 World Cup at Wankhede, it never goes out of the mind, until we won against them in the 2024 World Cup. And then slowly it got out of the mind.”
That 2023 ODI in Mumbai is still spoken about in Kabul cafés: 291 for 5, Australia 91 for 7, then Glenn Maxwell’s double-hundred. The immediate response then was similar to this week’s: food first, blame never. “After the game that night, we all gathered in the manager’s room, called all the players to come up there,” Rashid recalled. “We had a good dinner and just talked positively, just to keep supporting each other. I feel like this is so important.”
Sports psychologists might call it reframing. Rashid prefers plain language. “The only message I was giving to the players is, this is the time we have to stick together and we have to keep our heads up. If we don’t let ourselves down, we can achieve bigger things. But if we let ourselves down, it’s going to disappoint us. It’s going to just push us one or two years back, and that’s something which we don’t want.”
There is still a fixture to play. UAE have already surprised bigger sides in other tournaments, and Afghanistan cannot afford another lapse. Bowlers have hit the target zones for most of this World Cup – the side is conceding under eight an over – yet the batting remains top-heavy. Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran have carried the run-scoring burden; the middle hasn’t matched them.
Assistant coach Raees Ahmadzai offered a simple assessment during training: “If we are honest, thirty more runs from numbers five to seven and the table looks different.” No argument there; tournament cricket is merciless.
Rashid, meanwhile, is sticking to his “effort counts” mantra. “So we learn from it, we keep moving, we keep our heads up and we put effort. We haven’t got the result, but the effort was there, which was more pleasing than anything else.”
He knows that won’t soothe every supporter. A first senior world title remains distant, and elimination at the first hurdle would feel like a backward step after last year’s ODI heroics. Yet, for a side that once trained on concrete strips behind bomb-scarred buildings, merely reaching points where heartbreak is possible carries its own meaning.
Afghanistan will try to park the pain for 40 overs on Wednesday night. After that, win or lose, the captain may well order another round of dal bukhara – comfort, community and, just maybe, the start of moving on.
