Soaking up pressure and adapting their T20 skills to the pace of ODIs are the reasons for Afghanistan's batting success at the World Cup, according to their head coach Jonathan Trott ahead of a crucial game against Netherlands in Lucknow.
Coming into the tournament, Afghanistan's middle order had the lowest average of all Full Member nations in ODIs since the start of 2021 - 26.44. That number has gone up to 36.93 in the World Cup, the fifth best in the tournament.
"I think it's a case more of just being better all-around, and thinking more about your all-around game," Trott said in Lucknow on Friday. "Afghanistan [players] naturally grow up playing a lot more T20 cricket than any other format, so the skills for T20 are there. It's about adding to that sort of base of T20 skills. As you see, 50-over cricket is a long time and you have to be able to, I think, ride the sort of ebbs, and flows of a game."
While openers Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran have been scoring consistently, it hasn't gone bust when they have not fired. In their previous game against Sri Lanka, Gurbaz fell for a four-ball duck but Rahmat Shah stepped up and had half-century stands with Ibrahim and Hashmatullah Shahidi, who in turn put on 111 with Azmatullah Omarzai to finish the chase.
"The thing I'm really happy about from the last game is we lost a wicket in the first over and Rahmat Shah was able to go into No. 3 and soak up that pressure but still kept scoring at a good tempo," Trott said. "That shows the ability to soak up pressure at times, what you have to do in 50-over cricket, but also then accelerate at certain times."
Trott also stressed on the importance of the batters who are in to stay till the end and finish the job, especially while chasing.
"I think when chasing those targets, we saw just what is possible if you have a good solid start and you have batsmen in the last ten overs," he said. "That's happened for us, but it's also happened against us in games where it's been difficult to stop the opposition with set batters in the last ten overs.
"Having that sort of vision, knowing that you can score quickly towards the back end of games, I think that's the pennies we're starting to see drop with the players."
Afghanistan have managed to walk the talk, especially in their previous two games, against Pakistan and Sri Lanka where they chased down targets of 283 and 242 with ease.
"Obviously, there's a difference between talking about it and actually going out and doing it. And we're seeing players go out and do it now," Trott said. "We've spoken a lot about it and worked really hard to try and achieve it, so it's nice to see the players do well and have a smile on the face when they're there batting at the end of the game, having chased in the last two games and won."