ICC T20 WORLD CUP 2021

October 17, 2021

Assad Vala

Oman Cricket Academy Ground

Papua New Guinea

Media Conference

Oman - 131/0 (13.4), Papua New Guinea - 129/9 (20)

Q. What are your thoughts on the big defeat? Obviously first game, you have been here for almost a month. You had some training matches. Did you expect such a big defeat or was the early setback of losing early wickets put you on the back foot?

ASSAD VALA: Even though the setback, we had losing two wickets for no runs but I thought we fought back really well and put ourselves in a really good push in to post a total to give ourselves a chance, but on that wicket, 129 was never going to be enough, and the way we bowled and fielded also never didn't give us a chance. So I think that was it.

It wasn't a really good game for us. Some positives from the game was just in the batting. I thought we showed some character, a really good power play after, I mean, getting to a power play at 40-odd after losing two wickets early on. I think a lot of influence needs to be done.

Q. Hard luck for today's defeat. Do you think after you had recovered after two wickets, then in the middle overs, you lost many wickets and the middle order collapsed, like really reduced your chances of increasing total.

ASSAD VALA: Yes.

Q. What does that mean, the turning point of the game, according to you?

ASSAD VALA: I thought CJA's runout was a turning point. I think we were going really well. I think the wicket was really crucial, in a crucial situation because he is trying to launch. I think we are going at a really good rate and had a really good plan at the break, at the 10-over break when Coach came, as soon as we tried to launch CJA's runout, that was a really disappointing moment for us.

I thought at three wickets, we still had a good chance to post a really good total. At three, four down, 110, 111, 112, I think 10-over from there to get us to 160, I think our middle order wasn't good enough, and I thought credit to them, they bowled really well and put us under pressure, and I think they deserved the win.

Q. Hard luck but you said yourself that 129 wasn't good enough on this pitch but when you in for the halftime break, what did you tell the boys, did you think maybe a few good wickets like they got early on, and in the bowling department and the fielding department, where do you think things went wrong in the second half?

ASSAD VALA: For us, like you said, like we spoke about, we tried to get some early wickets and put them under pressure but we couldn't do that. I thought -- really, we both set really go overs early on but our last bowl, we couldn't close the overs down, which would have added a bit of pressure and taken the run with that. But I think we just didn't execute with our bowling today, which was not the standard we know we can. Our feeling, it wasn't up to standard as well, so a lot of improvement needs to be done for us to keep fighting against these top teams.

Q. Looking ahead, what are your thoughts against fancy teams like Bangladesh, seeded the best among the teams, and Scotland, how do you see your chances, or do you think that it will be a difficult task now, your dreams are over? What are your thoughts right now on the future of the next two games?

ASSAD VALA: Next two games, we just want to go back, talk about and reflect what we need to do. We just need to focus on ourselves and not worry about Scotland and Bangladesh at the moment, because it was us that we didn't do well today because we didn't execute our plans in skill.

So it wasn't Scotland or Bangladesh, we don't want to think about them. We want to go back and reflect on what we need to do well and focus on ourselves at the moment.