Lahore, Feb 27 Head Coach Trott lauded Afghanistan's win over England in the Champions Trophy to keep their semifinal hopes alive but wants his team to immediately shift their focus to the Australia showdown, where a win will seal their place in the knockouts.
Ibrahim Zadran's scintillating 177, followed by Azmatullah Omarzai's five-wicket haul, helped Afghanistan land a knockout blow to England with an eight-run win in the ICC Champions Trophy 2025.
Having shocked the world after reaching the semis in last year’s ICC Men's T20 World Cup, Jonathan Trott’s side are now just one win away from reaching the final four yet again.
“I'm going to make sure when they wake up tomorrow, they enjoy tonight, (but) wake up tomorrow ready for Australia. As soon as they wake up tomorrow, the focus is on Australia," Trott told the media after their nail-biting victory over England.
Afghanistan's upcoming match against Australia is now, effectively, a quarterfinal, with the winner gaining undeniable semifinal qualification and the loser packing their bags. But, the head coach admitted that Afghanistan needs to be well prepared, as the Aussies are not going to take his side lightly.
“Australia aren't going to take us lightly. So, we've got to be prepared. In the past, perhaps people would have seen the fixture and thought it was a little bit easier than playing a historic Test nation. But in this format, in these conditions, I don't see that.
“Since I've been coach we've played against Australia three times and we've been in the game each of those games. So, we should take a lot of confidence from that. And I think certainly what happened in the World Cup, T20 World Cup, and I say this to the players as well, that Afghanistan's never going to be taken lightly ever again.
“I see every game that we play is going to be competitive, and every game we go into I expect to win," Trott added.
Chasing 326 in what was a must-win game for both teams in Group B, England had been reduced to 313/9 at the end of the penultimate over. Then, Omarzai, who earlier trapped the big fish Joe Root (120) who was keeping England in the hunt for a mammoth total, removed Adil Rashid in the final over to close a memorable win for the Afghans.
“There’s a resilience to them. I think if you add to some cricketing experience and cricketing match awareness with regards to batting in particular, with regards to how you pace the innings... it's not always down to one person.
"We saw Ibrahim, the way that he's done today; we've seen Gurbaz do it in the past… We have Gulbadin at eight at the moment, who can come in and change games. So that self-belief is important and it starts within, but it's also quite infectious and it spreads within the squad," the Afghanistan coach said.
Afghanistan will take on Australia on Friday in a must-win encounter at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore.
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