Ask any of the Afghanistan players and they are all unanimous that the game against India at the World T20 has been the most special one they have ever played
Ask any of the Afghanistan players and they are all unanimous that the game against India at the World T20 has been the most special one they have ever played.
They don't stop tiring talking about the real-life experience of playing the No 1 ranked Test nation.
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| Afghanistan's Noor Ali during the ICC World T20. PIC/ AFP |
"We had only seen them on TV. Here, we were playing against them. Being big international stars, we were expecting them to be proud with a big attitude, but the Indian players were unbelievably nice and accommodating. They chatted with all our players. MS Dhoni spoke to our wicket-keeper Mohammad Shahzad who is his big fan. In fact, whenever the boys call his room, Shahzad will pick up the phone and say 'MS speaking'," said Basheer.
"I hit Zaheer Khan for a four and he gave a cold stare from the corner of the eye. I called out, 'control Khan' and he burst out laughing," recalled opener Noor Ali.
"Yuvraj was very friendly. Harbhajan, who has a reputation of being an angry man, did not say a word to our players," said Mohammad Asghar, who hit a six off Harbhajan.
However there is one regret that Afghanistan players had. They could not meet Sachin Tendulkar. "Our skipper Nawroz Mangal was disconsolate that Sachin was not there. He said: 'The entire Indian Team is here, we are playing them in our first World Cup game, but Tendulkar is not there, just too bad'!" revealed the manager.
"In the World Cup after facing bowlers like Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Ashish Nehra and Zaheer Khan, we realised that our batsmen needed to tighten their technique and hence we are here. We will be focusing completely on that."
