Afghanistan head coach Jonathan Trott on Wednesday slammed the Match Referee after his side suffered a narrow defeat against Sri Lanka in a must-win affair of the ongoing Asia Cup in Lahore.
In the last group match of the continental tournament, Afghanistan needed to chase down the target in 37.1 overs to advance for the Super 4 stage. Batting first, the islanders put up a massive target of 292 runs on the board and chasing the target, Afghanistan batted bery well as all-rounder Mohammad Nabi smashed the fasted ODI half-century for Afghanistan in just 24 deliveries.
However, Afghanistan were struggling at 289/8 at the end of the 37th over, needing just three runs in a delivery in which Mujeeb Ur Rahman got out, and the equation changed to 293 in 37.2 overs.
Rashid Khan, standing on the non-striker’s end, seemed to be unaware of that, should they reach 297, Afghanistan had until 38.1 to complete the task.
So they might have passed Sri Lanka on Net Run Rate (NRR) by reaching 293 after 37.2 overs, 294 after 37.3, 295 after 37.5, 296 after 38 overs, or 297 after 38.1.
Trott admitted straight away that they were not aware or informed by any of the match officials about the situation.
“We were never communicated those calculations,” he told reporters after the match.
“All we were communicated was we needed to win in 37.1 overs. We weren’t told what the overs in which we could get 295 or 297. (That we could win even after) 38.1 overs was never communicated to us. I don’t think there’s one reason we lost the game,”. There are areas of the game we could have done better and that goes for today’s game and the one against Bangladesh. We got some things horribly wrong in a few areas and it’s cost us. It’d be nice if we’d bowled them out a bit cheaper. But it wasn’t to be,” he added.