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ICC CRICKET WORLD CUP

June 21, 2019

Gulbadin Naib

Southampton, England, UK

Q. Gulbadin, so much has happened with the last England match, also the way it went. How's the team's morale? What are you telling the players how to kind of -- India match is also a high ranked team, and it's not going to be an easy match. So what are you telling the team?
GULBADIN NAIB: Look at the game we played against England, England is also a good side, so it's a fair side -- a fair team of World Cup. But if you look at the game, we did do a lot of things there. We also batted well, like because we're just focusing on 50 overs game. If we play 50 overs, maybe there will be a good total on the board, but credit goes to the England side. They played really well in how they batted at end of the innings. So now the morale of the guys, like they're just focusing each and every game. Yeah, we played bad games like the last four, five games, but we did well against England. Obviously, India is not like an easy side. So India is obviously one of the best teams now and high ranking team. So we're just focusing our cricket, so we're playing like -- it's not like other teams. India is a very tough team. So they're not giving us anything -- they will be coming very hard.

Q. My first question is there has been quite a few issues involving the team. The team selector said something, the coach said something. There are some issues involving the team. So how are you focusing on your game?
GULBADIN NAIB: No comment, sir. No comment.

Q. How do you see the format? Last World Cup you played six matches. This time you'll be playing nine matches. Do you think this format probably suits you?
GULBADIN NAIB: Yeah. If you look at the last World Cup, we played five, six games. Now here we're playing nine games and each team. So there's much difference here. So you can face different kinds of teams and different kind of -- especially in England's condition, so different kind of pitches. It's like we learned a lot of things the last four or five games. Now everyone knows Afghanistan like is growing team now in the world cricket, and it's now for me is a proud moment is that we're in top ten teams now, for me especially. So we're learning a lot of things now. It's difficult to say, if you face this kind of team, so you should do a lot first, so then you learn a lot of things. They're not giving a single chance to you. We're learning, and it's a very good experience for us.

Q. Whenever Afghanistan does well, it's not just the people of Afghanistan, but also the rest of the cricketing world rejoices because of the background, how you have come up through the ranks. Considering all this, how disappointing is it that not being able to perform well in this World Cup so far?
GULBADIN NAIB: No. Yeah, obviously, if you look at my country, so not everything well, but now everything going well now recently, like four or five years. So we're doing well in every part of Afghanistan, every department. It's not like in cricket we're doing well or not doing well. Yeah, we are here, like it's not like, as you said, tournament or like athletic tournament. It's like a high ranking cricket tournament. It's a World Cup, not like -- we cannot say that so everything is like an easy out. We have targeted some of the teams here so we have a chance to win. Like supposedly before the start of the game of Sri Lanka, there's a good chance for us to beat them, but it's a bad luck, for our team especially. But if you look for the team, specifically for our team, so we didn't play that good cricket. It's not our level cricket. How you play the cricket here, like if you look to the England side, England match, we did well a lot of things there, especially we batted 50 overs. This is a good point.

But if you look for the last four games, we didn't do good anything. We didn't do well. So that's why we lost the game. But we're trying to put good things of the match on the day, but it's our bad luck.

Q. Gulbadin, Rashid Khan had a pretty tough day against England. What's he been like in the few days since? How do you pick up a bowler like that to get a good performance out of him against India?
GULBADIN NAIB: If we look at Rashid Khan, I think he is a very -- I know it's happened for every player like this kind of day you face it. Everyone always knows, in cricket life, you have a phase of good days and also have bad days. So I think Rashid had the day we played England. So that's one of the bad days of Rashid Khan, if I'm looking. Rashid Khan is not an easy bowler. We can't play him in the nets because we know him, so he's very difficult. But credit goes to the England side. They played really well. But Rashid, I think he's one of the strongest mind players now, so he learn everything very quickly. He learns also from mistakes. So this is a good thing of Rashid. So I saw him today, and he's totally different. So this is the good thing for me and for the team. He didn't think about the last day or what happened on the next to last day. He's just focusing on the present and the future. So that's the best thing about Rashid.

Q. Captain, you play the bigger teams only rarely, once in a while, and that's the huge tournament, the global tournaments. You probably need to play the bigger teams more often. For instance, you have played very rarely against England or against India.
GULBADIN NAIB: Yeah, sure, we want also. If you look for we're not playing against the other teams, our squad, but we do very well. We want to improve our experience, so we should play against the good teams like India, Australia, South Africa, Pakistan. If you're targeting like the top five or top six teams, we should play a lot with them. If we play with them, maybe Afghanistan will be -- yeah, we will be losing the matches, or we will be struggling, but one day Afghanistan will be different.

So it's good for us, so if we play good cricket with this kind of team, maybe it's a great experience, especially for the team and for the boys.

Q. Is anything being done from the level of the cricket board to do that?
GULBADIN NAIB: They're trying to arrange good matches or good series. If you look at the schedule of the top eight teams, it's very tight and very -- they have not enough time, like we play series against them. But our board is trying to arrange the series, especially against like Pakistan, against India, but they didn't have a lot of time. But the board is trying.

Q. Gulbadin, you opened the batting in the last game. Was that a temporary move, firstly? And do you see you and Hazrat probably opening the batting in the future and taking the attack in the first ten overs, both of you together?
GULBADIN NAIB: It's not like the first time I'm opening the batting. Hazrat and I opened the batting in qualifying rounds. When the team requires it, I go up. Not actually in the opener, and also in the middle and also third position. So if the team require me, so I'm going up.

Here, just last game I opened because of trying to give the chance to Mujeeb, and we wanted extra batsman in the team. So that's why I came opening. It's not my mind that I should open the bat in the future, but I'm trying to give my 100 percent to the team.

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