IND vs AFG: I Don’t Know What The Answer Is To That Performance, Says Afghanistan Coach Phil Simmons

Phil Simmons, the Afghanistan head coach, admitted that there is an air of disappointment after the way the team lost against India in the one-off Test.

Well, the contest was always going to be a one-way traffic. Afghanistan never stood a chance against a side that was sitting on the top of the ICC rankings for quite some time now. However, there were optimism all around that Afghanistan would at least give India a tough fight. But India proved just too good for a nation which has made remarkable progress in the game. The hosts thrashed the visitors by an innings and 262 runs inside two days to give them a harsh reality check.

Afghanistan scored just 212 (109 & 103) runs in two innings which is the fewest a team has managed against India.  It took India just 399 balls to bowl out Afghanistan twice inside a day. Afghanistan played just 27.5 overs in the first innings 38.4 in the second.

“Well nothing has been said yet but we will have our meeting in a little while. I think there is an air of disappointment but not at losing but the way we played today. We can put first two hours down to nervousness, yesterday, and then we showed what we are capable of. But today I don’t know what the answer is to that performance,” Simmons said after the game.

Simmons further said that the inexperience of Test cricket was one of the reasons behind the dismal performance.

“I blame 30 % on the occasion and but the blame is a lot more on the naivety of what the Test cricket is about. You can play as much 4-day cricket as possible but when you get upstairs to the big league and especially, against the number 1 team in the world, it shows and today it showed in a big way,” he said.

The inaugural Test has shown that Afghanistan need to work very hard to become a good competitive side in whites. And Simmons said one way to bridge that gap is to play a lot more against the A teams of big countries. He admitted that playing against a lower-ranked team would have made the game more competitive but insisted that the team learned a lot by playing against the number one side.

“Yes, it could have been more competitive but we wouldn’t have learned as much as we learnt in this game. Because when you play against the best, you know how much work you have to do to get where they are. Take away from this game is that players can now see and it’s just not me telling them how Test cricket is at the top,” he said.

“First it’s a mountain to climb. I do believe they want to succeed and want to be good at it. They work hard and now we know we have to work five times harder. So I believe that they will get there,” the coach concluded.