Not the dream start for Rashid Khan’s international captaincy in probably the biggest cricket event for the ODI Nation, awhile after the fast tracked responsibility of taking up the top job the on field for this well oiled cricket team.
Surrounded by tones of experience in Muhammad Nabi, Muhammad Shazhad and Dawlat Zadran, Rashid would have hoped for a better scripted and executed result in their first game of the World Cup qualifiers in Zimbabwe against Scotland.
Anyone that follows associate cricket closely would have known Scotland would have been the happier team going into the innings break considering the fire power the Scots posses and having restricted Afghanistan to a per score following a late order collapse.
Great start that the doctor had ordered for Afghanistan with two early wickets of two key aggressive batsmen before MacLeod and Richie Berrington put together an over 200 run partnership at a more than required rate to take the game right out the favorites hands and the rest is already 5 hours old now.
Bigger question for me was on Rashid Khan approach to the defense of the per score. Coming off a great Big Bash tournament, a spectacular series against Zimbabwe where he was the Player of the series picking up 16 wickets at an average just under 8 and until recently his rise to number one ODI bowler, one must have been wondering the timing of when he takes the ball.
For a bowler of his quality, it leaves a lot of unanswered questions on why he bowls that late. Just as he was accustomed to bamboozling team mid orders and cleaning frail tails up, it’s a dangerous ploy if he is assigned the duty to break partnerships or tie down set batsmen which clearly didn’t work today against the positive duo of Calum MacLeod & Richie Berrington.
My take on this prodigy is as John Shedd said, “a ship is safe in harbor, but that is not what ships are built for”. Rashid Khan is filled with so much quality to settle for bowling at mid order and tail enders as I believe he could explore his captaincy by bowling much earlier to give the full test to top order batsmen and make major inroads into batting lineups for the rest of the bowlers to clean up.
Rashid Khan comes with a lot of mystery combined with quality and he is highly rated by Australian legend Adam Gilchrist that I can only hope he embrasses and enjoys the captaincy, AFGHANISTAN can’t afford another Rashid Khan “bad day in office”.