Afghanistan kept their Super Eights hopes alive with a five-wicket win over UAE on Monday, but qualification is still out of their hands. After the victory, South Africa moved into the Super Eights from Group D with six points from three matches. New Zealand, who have four points from three games, can seal the second spot if they beat Canada in Chennai on Tuesday. In that case, Afghanistan, currently on two points from three matches, will be knocked out even if they defeat Canada in their final group match on February 19 in Chennai.
Captain Rashid Khan remained hopeful despite the uncertainty. “Hoping for the best. Yes, (we) still have a little bit of hope, we can make it to the next stage and we just need to come up with a positive mindset (against Canada),” Rashid said at the post-match presentation. “Next game, you never know, it’s a T20 game, we’ll have to come up with a good brand of cricket. Even if we don’t make it to the next round, we want to play with the same brand of cricket and make the country and our people proud and happy.” Rashid said he was pleased to get points on the board after the heartbreaking loss to South Africa in a match decided in the second Super Over. “Happy to finish with a win, it’s important to have points in a T20 World Cup. To restrict them (UAE) under 160 was a good effort, we pulled things back, but we didn’t do well in the first 10 overs. That’s been a problem for us in all the games and something we need to work on,” he said. “We know how aggressive he (Rahmanullah Gurbaz) is. He goes out with a positive mindset – it doesn’t always work, but it’s good for the team when he gets going. We’ve quite a lot of experience, Azmat (Azmatullah Omarzai) has played a lot, (Mohammad) Nabi is the most experienced guy in the team. It’s always good to have experience and that’s something most important.” Player of the Match Azmatullah Omarzai, who returned figures of 4/15 from four overs and struck 40 not out off 21 balls, explained his approach. “I was trying to bowl in the hard length and hit the pitch hard. “It was funny, first ball was a wicket, but the ball didn’t didn’t carry. I took four wickets again. That first wicket got the momentum for us. “When I went to bat, I looked at the scoreboard. There were a lot of balls (left) for us. We needed to play straight and rotate the strike and I was speaking to my partner, (to) just play straight and we were waiting for the bad ball. “It was a good game where everyone did really well and everyone did hard work (on the South Africa game), but the result did not work our way, but we came back really well and hope we will do it again in the next match.
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