ICC T20 WORLD CUP 2021

October 24, 2021

Mohammad Nabi

Sharjah Stadium

Afghanistan

Pre Match Media Conference

Nabi, Afghanistan have had a lot of upheaval, a lot of turmoil back home. How much will a good performance in this World Cup mean for those back home, what do you think?

MOHAMMAD NABI: Everyone knows that back home in Afghanistan there's a lot happening and everything from the last few months. But as a cricket point of view everybody is ready for that World Cup and we prepared well for this World Cup.

There is a little issues when we arrived to Dubai about with those issues. But these last two warm-up games and practise session will well prepare for the team and prepare well for the upcoming games for tomorrow games as well.

Q. I meant about the fans back home. How much do you think the World Cup will matter?

MOHAMMAD NABI: The fans are really waiting for that camp because the only happiness in Afghanistan is cricket. If you're willing to do well in the tournament and we win the games, the fans are really happy and there will be a lot of smiles on faces and insha'Allah everything will be changed of this work if we do well in the tournament.

Q. Has your preparation for the T20 World Cup has been ideal?

MOHAMMAD NABI: Yeah, it's not that much ideal but from last one and a half weeks, when the team arrived and the current time and everything finished two warm-up games and around one week practise sessions, I think it's for those cricketers playing cricket all over the world, especially five, six, seven players are playing different franchise cricket from last six months, we are in touch with cricket. There is a few players just with the condition and also getting with the team and the competition of the team is more important.

And we did from last one and a half weeks and we are well prepared insha'Allah we'll try our best and do well.

Q. What does it feel like being at another T20 World Cup, the excitement around the event how are you feeling on the team?

MOHAMMAD NABI: Really excited. As a captain, just in the last moment I was the captain and I will try my best to bring my team as a unit, unity. And we will try our best and we did that from last one and a half week and we know each other very well from last few years and we are playing a lot of cricket in UE and we know the conditions how it's worked and every player knows that as well. Really excited. Insha'Allah, we'll do our best.

Q. And the first round of the tournament has shown some of the associate members to be performing extremely well, and Afghanistan obviously some years ago transferred from associate to formal member. How do you feel about other teams coming up and fighting with formal members?

MOHAMMAD NABI: It's really tough. The qualifying round, most of the time we're doing our qualifying round it's really tough round to be qualified for the next round. I'm really happy about performing in Namibia and Scotland. Did really well in the tournament and our group and really happy to play the Super 12 here.

Q. I was just wondering what is your feeling -- you got to Afghanistan, and how important is it for you this World Cup because people are actually counting on the Afghanistan team insha'Allah to become the champions what do you think?

MOHAMMAD NABI: Everyone back home is thinking that Afghanistan have a best team in this condition. And our team is in confidence. We do well in the tournament and insha'Allah we'll be the next team and we already targeted most of the teams in our group. And one by one we'll target by single game and it's really big meaning for this tournament for Afghanistan in this stage.