Afghanistan head coach Richard Pybus lamented the dropped chances by his team which allowed India to pile on 368 runs on the first day of their one-off Test in New Chandigarh.
Yashasvi Jaiswal, who was dropped on 11 at gully, did not do much to make Afghanistan regret. However, Afghanistan did not review a decision where KL Rahul had nicked off Ziaur Rahman Sharifi, and the opener struck a century.
B. Sai Sudharsan was handed two reprieves, on 20 and 59, off Nangeyalia Kharote and Sharifi, respectively, and ended up scoring 81.
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“We’ll unpack the day to look at what we did well and what we didn’t do so well. I think it’s really important we don’t have an excuse culture at the end of the day. They’re professional cricketers, they have got to catch the ball. We’ve got to perform under pressure. I don’t want to make excuses for the guys. Were we sharp enough? No, we weren’t. We’ve got to take those opportunities. It’s the beginning. of the season for the Afghan boys, so there’s definitely a bit of rust in us there,” Pybus said after the first day’s play.
Pybus added that the leg injury to Sharafuddin Ashraf that forced him off the field in the 34th over left his bowling unit short-handed to deal with the heavyweight-packed Indian batting order.
In the absence of the left-arm orthodox bowler, Afghanistan’s spin department was left with debutant Nangeyalia Kharote and Abdul Malik. The former conceded 95 runs off just 20 overs while the latter leaked 37 in just six.
Defending the call to not include leg-spinner Qais Ahmed, Pybus said: “I think we were reasonably confident that we were well covered. If you give a guy a debut, there’s always going to be pressure on the young bowler. He’s going to have to take his learning out of that. We were really looking at having three spinners operating. It didn’t happen.”
“I thought that [Kharote] showed a lot of character because there would have been some youngsters who would have really struggled to come back. With Malik, I think maybe the captain was a little bit worried after he bowled a couple of no balls. I think he backed himself then. Going one main spinner down really puts pressure on us,” Pybus added.
However, there was something to cheer for too for the visiting side. In the opening session of the day, Sharifi, Azmatullah Omarzai and Saleem Safi exploited the moisture in the pitch to keep India’s opening salvo in check.
India ended the opening session at 98 for one, and it could have been much better had Afghanistan grabbed the opportunities. However, Pybus felt his quicks could have been even better with their choices.
“For the seam bowlers, I thought they stuck at it really well… The conditions were pretty extreme today. You’ve got to look after your bowlers. It’s a real exercise for them to understand the type of discipline and channels they need to be bowling against the best players. The best bowlers in the world can hold channels and hold length for really long periods of time. They’re not necessarily taking wickets with magic balls; they’re taking wickets with consistent pressure. That’s the learning curve for some of our guys today.”
Published on Jun 06, 2026
