Ahead of the first T20I against Zimbabwe on Wednesday (March 17), Afghanistan captain Asghar Afghan said the three-match T20I series is coming at a good time for his side, as they are gearing up to build-up towards the Asia Cup and the ICC T20 World Cup 2021.
The three-match T20I series between Afghanistan and Zimbabwe will start from March 17 at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi, with the next two T20Is to be played on March 19, 20 at the same venue.
According to a report in Cricbuzz, Afghan stated: “The T20I series comes at a good time for us as we prepare for the Asia Cup and T20 WC. It will give us a good idea. We have good experience already in T20 format but the more we play, the better we adapt ourselves.”
Afghanistan returned to action in January against Ireland after a long gap due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the T20 leagues around the world kept the players “in touch” with cricket.
The skipper further noted, “Of course the leagues (franchise-based) have a good effect on our players and the best thing was that these leagues kept them in touch with cricket. Credit goes to these leagues as it helped to keep the love for cricket alive during the pandemic.”
Meanwhile, Afghanistan will take on Zimbabwe in the T20I series after a hard-fought second Test win to square the two-match Test series last week and Afghan admitted the lack of red-ball experience within his squad and said they need to work harder and work more on their skills in the format.
Afghan further explained, “We learned a lot from this match. Next time, we will try to conduct Preparation camps and four-day matches to build our temperament as we are not very experienced currently in red-ball cricket. We will need to work harder and work more on our skills as the Test match skills are very different from white-ball cricket.”
He signed off by saying, “Of course, it is hard to make a strong comeback after that kind of a defeat in the first Match. But, we had a plan for it - to work on our batting. We held a two-day scenario match followed by practice sessions.
In the second match, we strived to play our natural game and positive cricket since we had played comparatively poorer cricket in the first match. But, in the second match, we played more positively and focused on our strengths and punished the bad balls.”
