Seniors were not performing deliberately during World Cup: Gulbadin Naib

Afghanistan endured an extremely tough time at the 2019 World Cup. They lost all nine matches at the competition despite coming extremely close to victory on as many as three occasions. Their captain Gulbadin Naib looked a bit out of ideas at times and was unable to handle the pressure and after the tournament, has been sacked from the helm. He has now made some serious allegations against the senior cricketers in the team stating that they didn’t support him during the tough times.

Afghanistan were found wanting in demanding conditions against the teams like England, Australia, New Zealand and others. But they fared really well against their Asian neighbours and dragged India extremely close losing the game by only 11 runs. Their encounter against Pakistan went down to the wire and at one stage, were the favourites to win the match.

But the team, especially Gulbadin Naib, crumbled under pressure and Imad Wasim and Wahab Riaz took Pakistan home in a tense chase.

They were laughing after the defeats

Gulbadin Naib was made the captain of the team just ahead of the World Cup and even the players like Mohammad Nabi and Rashid Khan had expressed their disappointment over the same. While the skipper never came out with controversial statements during the tournament, he has now accused some of the senior cricketers that they were not playing well deliberately.

He also claimed that they didn’t support him on the field whenever he used to ask them to bowl at times. “We depend mostly on seniors in the World Cup but they were deliberately not performing, not giving attention to me, they were laughing instead of being sad after defeats & even not looking at me when asked to bowl,” Naib was quoted as saying by Afghanistan journalist.

Gulbadin Naib has been sacked from captaincy now and Rashid Khan has been appointed the captain of the team across all the formats. He has assured the leg-spinner of all the required support and Rashid acknowledged the same in a tweet recently.