KARACHI: Former Afghanistan captain Asghar Afghan claimed that Pakistan’s neighbouring team has the potential to beat the Green Shirts in the next round of the ongoing Asia Cup.
After the resounding wins against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in the group stage of the Asia Cup 2022, Afghanistan became the first team to qualify for the Super Four stage of the tournament. Pakistan and India are very likely to qualify for the next round unless Hong Kong put up a surprise against any of the two teams.
In an interview with an Indian cricket website, Asghar stated that Afghanistan always had close encounters with Pakistan and with proper planning and calmness within its ranks, the team could eventually beat Pakistan.
“Wherever we faced Pakistan, we always have a tough contest. If our players can play with proper plan and a bit of calmness, then we will have a really good match against Pakistan and hopefully, we can even beat them,” he said on Crictracker.com show.
Furthermore, Asghar believed that Indian players had an edge over other teams’ players because they faced the star spinner Rashid Khan and other Afghan bowlers during the IPL while the other teams in the tournament did not play a lot of cricket against them.
“Players who played a lot against them can only play them well. Indian players can play our bowlers well because they have played a lot in the IPL. Thus, they have an idea of our bowlers. The players of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka don’t know how to tackle our bowlers because they didn’t play a lot against us,” he said.
Afghanistan spinners Rashid and Mujeeb Ur Rahman remained inspirational with the bowl last night as they claimed three wickets apiece to wreak havoc on Bangladesh’s batting line before Najibullah Zadran smashed a powerful 43 off 17, blasting six gigantic sixes to claim a dramatic win over Bangladesh.
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