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Afghanistan made the questionable call to bench their left-arm chinaman bowler Noor Ahmad for T20 World Cup 2026 clash against New Zealand. While they managed to post a competitive total of 182/6 on the board, New Zealand chased it down with five wickets in hand and 13 balls to spare. After the defeat, Afghanistan's selection calls were questioned. Noor has plenty of experience bowling at MA Chidambaram, Chennai, his Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Chennai Super Kings' (CSK) homeground. But, Afghanistan head coach Jonathan Trott has defended the decision, saying that these are new wickets where he couldn’t have bowled. He blamed seamers for their underwhelming performance against the Kiwis.
"We thought with the cracks [there] would be a little uneven bounce and we were right with that. I think the selection was correct, we just didn't bowl well enough," Trott said in the post-match press conference.
"The seamers just didn't bowl well enough unfortunately. I thought they [New Zealand batters] played well. They put pressure on the seamers.
"Hindsight is always a nice thing or a dangerous thing as well. I didn't think it was going to spin a huge amount as well. I know Noor has got experience playing here, but these are new wickets, so it's not like he would have bowled on them before. There is that, but you always think whenever you lose, you wish you could have done things a little bit differently, don't you?"
21-year-old Noor was wicketless in last three outings. In the two warm-up games in Bengaluru, he did not pick a wicket. Also, he remained wicketless in the T20I clash against West Indies.
Afghan pacers leak boundaries
Meanwhile, Afghan pacers were taken to the cleaners. Despite Mujeeb Ur Rahman's double strike in the second over to dismiss an in-form Finn Allen and Rachin Ravindra, pacers were not able to contain Tim Seifert and Glenn Phillips. The only Afghan pacer who managed to take a wicket in the clash was Azmatullah Omarzai. Even then, the all-rounder conceded 40 runs from 3.5 overs. Fazalhaq Farooqi was wicketless and conceded 25 runs from two overs. Ziaur Rahman Sharifi went for 33 runs from three overs.
Afghanistan's next clash is against South Africa at Ahmedabad's Narendra Modi Stadium on February 11. Noor has experience in Ahmedabad as well where he represented Gujarat Titans (GT) for two seasons. He claimed 16 wickets in GT's second season when they reached the final. It will be interesting to see if he gets a place in the playing eleven.
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