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South Africa's legendary pacer Dale Steyn has pointed out the major flaw in Afghanistan team that beat England but was knocked out of ICC Champions Trophy 2025 semifinal race. Steyn feels there is lack of patience in Afghanistan players but backed them to gain experience and win an ICC tournament in the next decade
"We live in a time now where people are not patient enough. We can hardly watch two seconds on an Instagram story and it just feels like the Afghanistan players are similar when they're playing their cricket," Steyn said on ESPNCricinfo.
"Patience is one of the biggest things that Afghanistan players need to learn, and once they get that down, honestly, in the next decade, they could win ICC tournaments, for sure.
"They want things to happen so quickly. This ball must be a wicket, there's no patience to building up and taking a wicket. The batters are the same sometimes, they're batting in the first over. There's so much movement happening in the crease, so they're trying to hit a six and they're trying to get the game going," the 41-year-old noted.
Steyn believes Afghan players should not just focus on playing T20 cricket in different leagues across the globe but focus on playing four-day games as ODI format is closer to red-ball cricket.
"Back in the day, a lot of players would go play county cricket. Or they would go play first-class cricket to improve their skills and improve their patience really," Steyn said.
"I think a lot of them (Afghanistan players) play T20 cricket around the world, which is great, it's great for their pockets and it's great for them to learn.
"But, maybe, spending some time in four-day games might help, because one-day cricket is essentially a shortened version of a Test match."
How Afghanistan fared in Champions Trophy 2025
Afghanistan were beaten by South Africa in their opening encounter by 107 runs at National Stadium, Karachi. In their second clash, they beat England by eight runs in a thrilling encounter. In their third match, Afghanistan set a target of 274 against Australia. In the run chase, Australia were 109/1 in 12.5 overs when rain interrupted and the match ended in no result.
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