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ICC CRICKET WORLD CUP

February 18, 2015

Andy Moles

CANBERRA, AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY

Q. Unfortunate for Samiullah to be barred from bowling as early as the second over. Could you tell us about how he took it and how the rest of the team took it because it's not something that happens very often, Samiullah, barred from bowling in his second over?
ANDY MOLES: Yeah, it's obviously disappointing for him, and he's a bowler that we use to take pace off the ball, but I don't think it had any effect on the outcome of the game. It's something that we'll have to go back and work on. Over the seven months I've been here, I've never seen or heard him being called before, but looking at the TV evidence, he certainly was in the infringing area, so that's maybe just because with the better umpires who are more focused in seeing that sort of thing. We've got to improve from that, and that's one of the things that we'll go back into practice and perhaps bring him back on the crease, get into his action a little bit just to get him off the danger area. But he's fine. We've spoken about it. He's not the first one that got that unfortunate message from the umpires, and I'm sure he won't be the last.

Q. Do you think the margin reflects the difference in strength and experience between these two sides?
ANDY MOLES: I mean, experience‑wise, I think the Bangladesh guys have got far more experience than what we have. We're disappointed with our performance today. That isn't a true reflection of how we play, but in any game of cricket when you're three for three in one and a half overs, not many teams, if any teams come back from that. We had a couple of good partnerships but then they didn't go on long enough. The boys are very proud in their performance, and they know that they haven't given a fair reflection today. They've got to take it on the chin. We'll go to New Zealand at 5:00 in the morning tomorrow, we play Sri Lanka in three or four days, and we've got to pick ourselves up, and we know that we haven't played well, we haven't done the things, the basic things that we normally try and do, so from that point of view, we just have to take it on the chin. Well played, Bangladesh. I thought their bowlers bowled well and their senior batters did a good job maneuvering the innings to stay where they could push on, but we'll take the disappointment over the next 12 hours or so. We'll lick our wounds. We generally thought this was a game that we could win tonight. I still believe if we'd have applied ourselves better than we would have given a better account. But well done to Bangladesh, and they played very well.

Q. Andy, you spoke about disappointment, but for the first 30 overs when they were going at less than four an over and four wickets down; it looked like one of the game plans you had were very much working.
ANDY MOLES: Yeah, one of the issues we've had in a lot of our cricket, to be fair, is we do well with bat and ball for 35 overs, and it's just that extra 15 overs where we need to work on our concentration levels, work on our disciplines, work on our execution, and it's something we've spoken about regularly. You're quite right, the first 30 overs or so today, we were very good. We bowled well. We bowled with discipline. We had control. We fielded well. And then one or two little sloppiness crept into our fielding and our bowling just wasn't quite as focused as it had been, and then it just got a little bit worse, and they played very well. Take nothing away from Bangladesh. They batted well, but we didn't hit the heights that we expect of ourselves.

Q. Andy, that's sort of your outlook on the game is one more of disappointment rather than, I guess, excitement at the guys actually making their debut in the World Cup?
ANDY MOLES: I think we've moved past that. Honestly, we're here to compete in the games. We've just got great news from the ICC where ourselves and Ireland have moved up. Over the next three years we've got an opportunity to play ODIs against ‑‑ we can try and get other countries to play us. We're in the shop window here. As the gentleman just said, for the first 30 overs we give a good account of ourselves. We haven't disgraced ourselves, but that wasn't a true reflection on the work that we do in preparation and the way we play our cricket. What it was tonight is we got lost, and it looked ‑‑ we just didn't get out of the blocks with the bat. Our feet weren't moving. We were just ‑‑ I don't know, we were in a fog. We just didn't get going, and they bowled very well, didn't give any freebees up front, and before we knew it we were one, two, three down, and then we were sort of treading water.

Q. What do you put those first three wickets down to, nerves, and do you think they'll be all the better for it going forward?
ANDY MOLES: As I say, I generally don't think they were up for the fight right from ball one. That's a criticism that I'm going to go and talk to the players now. Will we benefit from it? Well, I just want us to be better prepared mentally and better in our feet when we first go in. We're playing against the top players in the world. Bangladesh are not the top side in the world, but they were well disciplined. They bowled with discipline, and I thought their seam bowlers bowled particularly well. They bowled good areas, they hit the wicket hard, and they bowled quick enough, 140. When you're playing players like that, you're not getting any freebees. They come in, the top sides, and they'll challenge you from ball one. It just looked as if we were just trying to expect a couple of overs just to get ourselves going, but unfortunately we paid the price for that.

Q. Andy, as far as we know, the bowling side was quite well and were satisfactory, but the batting didn't go well. Will we see any major changes in the squad for the batting lineup in the next matches? And how do you see the team's performance while facing SriÃ‚ Lanka in the coming days?
ANDY MOLES: Well, first question, will there be changes? We'll have to look at that with myself and the captain when we look to select the final side for the next game. It's difficult to say that the first three were out of form because they just didn't get going. They need to take responsibility. They know they have a job to fulfill, and that is to see off the new bowlers, set the game up for our ‑‑ as you saw tonight, we've got batters that can come in and hit the ball hard. But they can't come in after three overs and do it. We need to set the game up. Your second question?

Q. How do you see the performance while facing Sri Lanka?
ANDY MOLES: I mean, Sri Lanka will be a step up, but as I said, I think my biggest message is you haven't seen Afghanistan play yet. That was not the discipline that we have put into the side and the players take onto the field. The issue with associate cricket is at times it's inconsistency. When we're good, we're very good, and I think I said this yesterday. When we're poor, although we weren't drastically poor today, but we did not hit the average heights. When we have a bad day, we must be average. Up front today we had a bad day, and we were worse than average. That's the challenge I'm trying to get the players. When we have a bad day, we've got to be average, and then when we're good we can be very good. We had two partnerships tonight, a 50 that could have gone on to challenge if we'd have ‑‑ but we need to just bat in partnership for another five overs, another five overs. The question was earlier, this is our first World Cup. Yes, it's exciting and it's a learning curve and we mustn't forget that, either, but we will learn from every fixture. But we have come here to challenge in every game wherever we can, and the boys are disappointed in the dressing room. They thought that ‑‑ they believe, and I agree with them, they did not give a good account of themselves today. Hopefully come Sri Lanka, they'll do better, and I think I said yesterday, it's like a teacher with children; we have to educate them every day to get better, and you have good days and you have bad days.

Q. What's your answer to those concerns that Afghan team management doesn't have any good idea or policy for bringing openers, they're changing openers for each game, and this doesn't happen to other teams. What's your answer to this question? What do you expect from Afghan players in games they have ahead?
ANDY MOLES: Well, second question first is we just need to fulfill the roles that each player has been given over the last five, six months, so they need to take responsibility. They need to fulfill the plans they've got. Changing the order, we just changed the opening batting because we needed four seamers in the game tonight. If it hadn't had been Usman who had been left out of the game, who played some poor shots against India the other day and has not shown a huge amount of form before that, we'd have had to leave out one of the senior players at three, four, five or six. So do we leave out one of the senior players, because we needed four seamers, and as it happened, we needed them because the leg spinner was warned off and Javed didn't bowl as well as he had have done. If we hadn't have had four seamers, we'd have been in even worse trouble. So the biggest problem with Afghan cricket at the moment is we need our balance in our side and to get four seamers because we've got three batters that all bowl spin. If one of those top batters bowled seam, as well, it would be easier to get the balanced side, but we have what we have, we're moving forward. We've got a lot of promising young players at home, and it's a cycle through this program moving forward we'll know which holes we've got to put pegs in to fill, and I think if you're honest, if you look at the batting order compared to what's happened before I arrived, it's been far more stable than it's ever been in Afghan. If you go and have a look and you come back to me, I think you'll say, Coach, you're right.

Q. Andy, most of Afghanistan's cricket has been played on Asian pitches where you can't afford to go hard from ball one. In these kind of conditions do you think you'll maybe have to alter the batting strategy in the first 15 overs and maybe consolidate first with the kind of batting lineup that you've got? There are explosive batsmen lower down the order.
ANDY MOLES: There are, but I don't think we had an opportunity to show any sort of batting plan today because the three wickets that fell were due to lack of foot movement, and on the wickets we played here today, I thought this was quite a flat wicket. When we go to Perth against Australia, when we go to New Zealand, the ball is going to do far more than what it's done today. I don't think it was the Australian‑type wickets that got us out today. The reason we fell today is we weren't proactive in our foot movements. When you lose three runs, we haven't got a chance. We've got people that are forced to come in at No.4 or 5 came in within three overs today. The front three must fulfill the role that they've been selected to do, and everybody else will be able to ‑‑ just as an opener bowler has his role to do, spinners and first change of bowlers.

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