Afghanistan team caoch Phil Simmons was at a loss of words for the manner of his team’s defeat.
Head coach of the Afghanistan team, Phil Simmons, was at a loss of words for the manner of his team’s defeat – an innings and 262 runs and losing 20 wickets in two sessions – at the hands of India in their historic inaugural Test here on Friday.
“There is an air of disappointment. Not just disappointment of losing but the disappointment at the way we played today (Friday). I think we can put first two hours (on Day 1) to the nerves getting the better of us, but today, I don’t know what my answer is to our performance.”
He said the historic occasion of Afghanistan playing their first ever Test made the players nervous. “I will blame 30 per cent on the occasion and I blame a lot more on the naivety of what Test cricket is about. You can play as much I-Cup and four-day cricket as you want but when you get to the big league and play the No 1 team, it shows. And, today it showed in a big way,” said the former West Indies batsman.
The 55-year Trinidadian said the only way to bridge the gulf between his team and the other nations is to play a lot of ‘A’ matches. “I think with us, there has to be a lot more ‘A’ team cricket played against big countries by some players – players just below 18 – in England, India, Bangladesh, Australia… So, I think that’s the best way for us to close this gap.”
He also welcomed the Indian cricket board’s decision to arrange practice games for teams visiting India against Afghanistan. “I think it is a step in the right direction,” he said.
Simmons agreed that playing against lower-ranked Test nations like Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, West Indies will make the Tests more competitive for Afghanistan.
"But, you wouldn’t have learned as much as you did from this game because when you play against the best, you will know how much you have to do to get where they are. That’s what I will take away from this game, players see that now and it’s not just telling them that how tough Test cricket is. I agree that it would have been more competitive against a No. 8 or a No. 9 team, but I will take what we get from this game,” he said.
Simmons said that the learning curve is huge for his team. “I do believe they want to succeed, they want to be good at it and they work very hard and we now know that we have to work five times as hard as we did in the last four weeks. I believe that they will get there.”
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 "Phil Simmons")
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