Jonathan Trott has explained Afghanistan’s decision to leave out Noor Ahmad for their T20 World Cup match against New Zealand, a move that attracted attention after The Afghans slumped to a five-wicket defeat at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on Sunday 8 February. The challenge raised eyebrows given Noor’s strong record in Chepauk.
In seven IPL matches at the venue, Noor has taken 13 wickets, including four wickets. However, Trott insisted that Afghanistan did not make the wrong choice by leaving out the left-arm spinner. Instead, he pointed to the lack of impact of the pace trio of Fazalhaq Farooqi, Zia Ur Rahman Sharifi and Azmatullah Omarzai who failed to perform as expected.
‘DID NOT EXPECT A LOT OF TURNS’
Trott also admitted that Afghanistan may have misread the conditions a bit on Chennai’s newly prepared surface, which offered much more help to the spinners than expected.
World Cup T20, Afghanistan Vs. New Zealand Highlights
“We thought the cracks were going to cause a bit of uneven bounce and it showed. I think the selection was right but we didn’t play well enough – unfortunately the seamers didn’t work as well as they should have. Credit to them, they put our seamers under pressure,” Trott said in the post-match press conference.
“Hindsight is always a dangerous thing. I didn’t expect the pitch to spin much. Noor has experience playing here but these are new wickets so it’s not like he’s bowled at them before. Still, whenever you lose you naturally feel you could have done a few things differently,” added Trott.
Afghanistan, who were defending 183, got off to a flying start after Mujeeb Ur Rahman took the wickets of Finn Allen and Rachin Ravindra. Rashid Khan and Mohammad Nabi also took one wicket each but the pacers escaped with 98 run-off in 8.5 overs. A poor performance by the pacers allowed the Kiwis to post their highest run in T20 World Cup history.
The Afghans will look to make amends when they take on Aiden Markram’s South Africa at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on February 11.
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Issued by:
sabyasachi chowdhury
Published on:
February 8, 2026
