Manchester: A dejected Afghanistan coach Phil Simmons hinted Wednesday that chief selector Dawlat Ahmadzai had a role in shock removal of Asghar Afghan from captaincy days before the World Cup and that the decision has taken a toll on the side.
Lying at the bottom of the table after losing all of their five matches so far, a blame game has started with Ahmadzai holding the Simmons-led coaching set-up responsible for Afghanistan’s below-par show in the ongoing World Cup.
“I am in the middle of a World Cup and trying to get our team to perform to the level we expect but at the end of the World Cup I will tell the Afghanistan people about the part that Mr Dawlat Ahmadzai had to play in our preparation and his part in the dismissal of #AsgharAfghan,” Simmons tweeted.
Simmons was reacting to a tweet by an Afghanistan journalist where he wrote that Ahmadzai believes the poor show of the national team was because of lack of preparation on the part of the coaching staff.
In a surprising move just a couple of weeks before the tournament, the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) named Gulbadin Naib as the limited-overs captain, replacing experienced Asghar.
But the decision didn’t go down well with the team members with senior players like Mohammad Nabi and Rashid Khan openly questioning the move. That a lot was amiss could be understood the way Nabi bowled in the game against England. The star leg-spinner went for more than 100 runs in his nine overs with England captain Eoin Morgan taking him to the cleaners.
Afghanistan has so far suffered defeats against Australia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and Sri Lanka. Afghanistan is set to play India in their next game, Saturday.
PTI