Read this special interview with Asghar Afghan
Former Afghanistan cricket team captain Asghar Afghan will be seen playing for Gujarat Greats in the third season of Legends League Cricket (LLC). Recently, he had a special conversation with Crictracker, which is the official media partner of the ongoing season of LLC, about the Afghanistan team.
In this interview, he has told what the Afghan team will have to do to do well in Test cricket. How is Afghanistan going to perform in the Champions Trophy? And is he himself going to be seen working with any IPL team? So here are some questions and answers from this special interview with Asghar Afghan:
Question: How do you see the performance of the Afghanistan team in the upcoming Champions Trophy?
Asghar Afghan: Look, the pitches of Pakistan and India are quite similar. There are batting tracks, later they are a bit slow. But Afghanistan will have to go there and play good cricket. As I said earlier, Afghanistan players are very experienced at this time, they play cricket leagues all over the world, play different bowlers.
In my opinion, today there is no team as experienced as Afghanistan in the world except India and one or two other teams. But it is being heard that India will go to Pakistan or not because of politics. In my opinion, these things should be kept away from cricket. Sports should be kept away from politics. Afghanistan will play very good cricket in the upcoming Champions Trophy.
They have a lot of experience in the 50-over World Cup and the T20 World Cup, the team now knows that they can beat any team. So, I hope that this time Afghanistan’s performance in the Champions Trophy will be different.
Question: What more does Afghanistan need to do to improve in Test cricket?
Asghar Afghan: Look, first of all we have to make our first class cricket tough. Whenever Afghanistan has a first class season, I think all national players should play the first class season. Our first class season is about to start, but about 40-50 of our young cricketers have left the country.
If the current 25-30 cricketers also do not play first class cricket, then our test cricket will be left far behind. My suggestion to the cricket board is that they should ask the national players to play domestic cricket so that the youth can gain experience. Only then can we do well in this format.
Question: This time too you are playing LLC season, how is your preparation this season and will your team lift the trophy?
Asghar Afghan: On the paper, our team is very good. The team has players like Shikhar Dhawan, Chris Gayle, Mohammad Kaif, Shannon Gabriel. We are just playing regular cricket. Before this, I have also played a lot of cricket leagues. You can’t say anything in T20 cricket, let’s see what happens, but we will try to play good cricket.
Question: If you get a chance to work in IPL in any role, would you like to join any team?
Asghar Afghan: There is no doubt that IPL is a big cricket, fast cricket. If you get a chance to work in IPL, then it increases your experience a lot. The best players and coaches of the world are there.
So, I cannot say which team I will work with but you get an opportunity there and whichever team you will be with, you will get a lot of ideas and experience there.
Watch this exclusive Crictracker interview with Asghar Afghan
Asghar Afghan Exclusive Part-1