Afghanistan head coach Jonathan Trott said that the bowlers need to pull up their socks and have to put pressure on the Indian batters in the middle-overs to put up a fight in the third T20I on Wednesday. Afghanistan have already lost the chance to win the series after losing the first two matches but they will be looking for a consolation win.
The Afghan bowlers failed to trouble the Indian batters in the middle overs as the hosts comfortably chased down the targets in the first two T20Is.
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“I will be looking at getting closer to a good 40 overs from us tomorrow. Being able to put some pressure on the Indian side in the middle overs with the ball would be nice.
“It’s something that we want to get better at if we want to compete at the World Cup (in June). So, plenty to play for at such a historic venue,” said Trott in his pre-match press meet on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the absence of Rashid Khan also hurt Afghanistan in the bowling department as other spinners failed to create any impact.
Trott said Afghanistan management is giving ample time for the star spinner to recover.
“It is a case of us making sure that we are careful with his back. He is such an influential player. We have to make sure he is 100% ready and not rush him back from that type of surgery. It is important to give him the time and he is working extremely hard.
“He has got a few more appointments and check-ups to make sure everything is okay. So, there is no real time-frame. I hope it is sooner rather than later. But there is no pressure and no rush,” said Trott.
Afghanistan batters also have not really fired in this series, and Trott attributed that underwhelming effort to his side playing not enough T20s of late.
“We haven’t played a lot of T20s recently. As a side, we take a while to get into the rhythm. We saw ourselves build towards that 50-over WC with the Asia Cup and a series before that. Hopefully, tomorrow we can get it all together,” he said.
Trott offered a clear path for his batsmen to register some runs against their names.
“We need batters going into the last ten. We have seen how hard it is to stop batters in the last five overs. What we did really well in Mohali is that in the last ten overs we got 110 runs, I think for two wickets. But in Indore, in the middle overs, we went nine overs at six (runs) an over, building up for the last five.
So, we do well for one game and don’t do it in the next. We need to do it more if you want to compete for the series, in World Cups,” he added.
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