Afghanistan leg-spinner Rashid Khan is among the best bowlers in the shortest format. He is currently the number one T20I bowler and the journey to the top wasn't easy for him. Rashid was about to quit cricket at one stage.
Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) shared a video of Rashid in which he talked about the difficult phase in his cricket career. He wanted to leave cricket after being dropped from the Afghanistan-A squad without getting a game.
"I was picked in the Afghanistan-A team, I joined the camp but did not get any games. I was dropped from the squad. I was about to leave cricket as well. My brother was really angry and he told me you should leave cricket and go focus on your studies," he said.
Rashid revealed that it was his mother who encouraged him to continue playing irrespective of the outcome.
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"I then called my mother and she told me to just go and enjoy your game. Whatever the result is, if you don't make it tomorrow, you will make it some day," he added.
Rashid made it into the national squad after going back to domestic cricket and picking 21 wickets in just three matches.
"Then there was a domestic competition and I got 21 wickets in three matches. When I performed there, I got an opportunity in the national team in 2015," he said.
The 22-year-old recalled the match between Afghanistan and Bangladesh in Dehradun which saw huge support for them because of IPL.
"We were playing a series against Bangladesh in Dehradun. There were almost 25,000 people in the crowd. For the first time we had that many people for an Afghanistan game and they came because we played IPL," he said.