Head coach Jonathan Trott is hoping Afghanistan manage to build on Wednesday’s victory over England and that no side would “ever again” dare to take them lightly.
The former England batter also said it’s been a collective effort which has driven them to success.
“I think if you add to some cricketing experience and cricketing match awareness with regards to batting in particular, with regards to how you pace the innings, we saw Ibrahim (Zadran) the way that he’s done today (Wednesday), we’ve seen (Rahmanullah) Gurbaz do it in the past, and we’ve seen various players come in, that it’s not always down to one person.
“So that self-belief is important and it starts within, but it’s also quite infectious and spreads within the squad,” said Trott.
“When I took over, there was a rawness to the side. A lot of it is to do with preparation and how they think about themselves and the work they do off the field, with which you give yourself the best chance on the field.
“The guys play a lot of cricket; they play a lot of franchise cricket, which is good because they’re developing and playing with the world’s best players and seeing how they perform. They bring that experience back to the Afghanistan side and throw it in the melting pot and we get nights like this,” remarked Trott.
Trott stressed on the collective work formula. “What happened in the World Cup, T20 World Cup, and (now)... I say this to the players: Afghanistan’s never going to be taken lightly ever again,” he said.
“In the past, perhaps people would have seen the fixture and thought it was a little bit easier than playing a historic Test nation.
“But in this format, in these conditions, I don’t see that. I see every game is going to be competitive and every game we go into, I expectto win.”
