Abundance in natural talent makes Afghanistan special: Rashid
Premier leg-spinner Rashid Khan has been the flagbearer for Afghanistan and has already established himself as one of the best in the world having played all across the globe.
Apart from Rashid, the likes of Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Mohammad Nabi, and Fazalhaq Farooqi along with a few others have also shown great promise, with Afghanistan managing to produce exciting cricketers regularly.
Afghanistan has become a unique force in international cricket with an abundance of talented cricketers who possess specific skill sets. Such an abundance of natural talents has contributed to its meteoric rise on the global stage despite lacking the facilities and of course, battling the hurdles that come with a crisis-ridden nation.
"It's more about the natural talent we have back home in Afghanistan and that is something that makes us more special," Rashid told the reporters in the pre-match press conference on Thursday. "As a young kid when you start playing cricket, you want to learn the basics and you start getting better and then you become a good player. But if you are a young kid and good in cricket and have good skills and natural talent, then you work on those, you become the best players."
"We don't have many facilities back home. We don't have much domestic cricket. But the good thing is we have the natural talent. And it has brought Afghanistan to this level. If you look back 10-15 years when the seniors started playing cricket, at that time, we had zero facilities and zero grounds. There was no grass ground in Afghanistan and there was no turf wicket. They were playing on cement wickets. In those times, they struggled. But the only thing was that we had to take Afghanistan to the next level. And they had those skills and those talents," he added.
The Afghanistan T20I skipper praised how the cricketers in the country have adapted to their situation and managed to bridge the gap between playing tennis-ball cricket and making the jump to cricket balls. Rashid, however, added that the early struggle is paying Afghanistan the dividends by giving them a platform from which they now dream to become the best in the world.
"They brought the players from tennis ball cricket and straight away played them at that level. But they had in their mind that they are capable of delivering the best for the team. They had the patience. I feel like that is something that makes Afghanistan players more special at this level. Now we got the opportunity to have the best facilities and coaches and all the things that help to look after ourselves and become the best players.
"The moment we have the Afghanistan Premier League back, the moment we have good domestic structure, it's going to be a different level of cricket. There will be different kinds of players coming through. There are many natural talents and you need to polish them and give them a kind of opportunity with which they can deliver and we showcase their talent," he said.