"Afghanistan has the talent to win the T20 World Cup," says Rashid Khan

The next T20 World Cup will be hosted by India in 2021.

Rashid Khan | GETTY

Afghanistan's star spinner Rashid Khan is aiming to win T20 World Cup for his team. He believes the nation has an ample talent pool to be the champions in the shortest format. Rashid feels winning the T20 World Cup could be Afghanistan's biggest achievement till now.

There are two World Cup events lined up in the next two years. In 2021, India will host the ICC showpiece tournament, and conditions could play in favor of the neighboring country, Afghanistan.

“I think the biggest achievement (for Afghanistan) should be, right now, what the team is looking for, what the country is expecting is, to win the T20 World Cup,” he said speaking to R Ashwin during the show, DRS with Ash.

The 21-year-old does not doubt the ability of Afghanistan players, but he admitted that they lack experience. “We have all the skills, talent, and we just need to have that belief in ourselves that we can do it.

“Talent-wise we are so good, we have the spinners, we have the fast bowlers, we have the batting skills as well. But what took us down in that Test (against India) was our experience against big teams, because we didn’t play enough cricket with them.”

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Afghanistan was defeated by India in their maiden Test match by an innings and 262 runs at the Chinnaswami Stadium in Bengaluru.

“The biggest dream of the whole country was to be called a Full Member team and to play a Test game. When we were playing against you guys in our first Test game, we didn’t know what we were doing. Everyone was just counting – I’m going to be the first one to hit a four, the first one to hit a six, the first one to take a single. It wasn’t the best game for us, but there were so many things we learned.”

Rashid feels the need of locking horns with big teams more often to up their game. “The moment we play more series with them, we can become a better team.

“We are very famous for T20 players, but inshallah, that is a dream of mine and a dream of the country that one day we will win the T20 title and that will be the biggest achievement for Afghanistan cricket and for us as well,” Khan said.

(With PTI Inputs)

 
 

By Sihyeu Singh - 16 Sep, 2020

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