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Were we not good enough? Afghan game review

Finally we won a game. As I saw on social media and on many one to one chats , many were not that much pleased. There were talk about three missed boundaries given away by Afghans and etc..  But I would say we need to appreciate the victory and look forward.

By all means it is a very good victory. Afghans are by no means are minnows now specially when it comes to T20 cricket. The gap can be minimum between full member side and minnow side in T20 simply because minnows has to concentrate only for 40 overs rather that 100 overs or longer version of the game. Even in life you can't judge a person by short period of time right? So guys we need to cut some slack for our boys.

The victory is a very good one. Why I say that is we didn't look rattled like in UAE game in asia cup. We played the cricket the way we used to play except for Malinga yokers. Batting after some time looked pretty good , Angelo finally looked like hitting his form even with the late end cameo which is good.

Bowling of course will come under much more pressure by looking at the big hitting ability of the other three teams which was shown so far, but then again look what Newzealand has done. They managed to win despite putting up below par totals against big hitting teams. If you believe in your self and do what you do best it won't be that much hard as you imagine. You have to feel for Kula of course since he gave away 43 runs in his quota and he bowled pretty bad last over. Still if Angelo held on to the catch of their top scorer rightly after Kula took the wicket , he would have had better figures.

Fielding is worrying for sure. I don't think we can't do wonders in just few days. But except for dropped catches ground fielding was OK. If we held on to those we would have chase some thing around 120-130 which would look rather comfortable victory in the end. So boys That is why i am rephrasing it might  look ugly but a very good bloody victory. So now we have to believe and support them.

Batting seems to find its way. We did not panic except for Dilshan trying some reverse sweeps in the midway. He looked calm and composed and more importantly played chance less innings. If Chandi can keep his end and find few more boundaries we are good. Do not have to worry about Thiri since it was not the best pitch to come and start time the ball. Let him have some breathing space and he will come good.

I am writing separate paragraph on Thisara's role. Never happy on him playing as the 4th bowler who is bound to give away 30 plus runs in his four overs day in day out. And sending him above Kapu only worked because Afghans could not afford to operate with a seamer in the middle of the innings which gave him a chance. It will not work for sure against other giants in the group. I was hoping If Malinga is fit he would be a straight swap to Thisara but now it is not the case. So play Thisara at 7 if you badly need him ( I don't know why) and play proper bowler at 8.

So that's my bit on   the game. Lets hope we pull some magic against "Gayle Storm" on Sunday.

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