It’s a shaky, awkwardly zoomed-in video taken inside a brightly lit pavilion of Delhi’s Arun Jaitley Stadium.
Jonathan Trott has the ear of the Afghanistan dressing room that’s buzzing after stunning England. Like a warrior galvanising his troops, he raises his right hand – holding a pen instead of a sword – and delivers an emotional sermon.
He doesn’t demand a lot. “Just enjoy tonight,” Trott tells them. “There were too many times when I was a player when I didn’t enjoy the moment…” He pauses to let the heavy words sink in. “So enjoy this,” he repeats.
More than a coach debriefing his players after a big match of the World Cup, this feels like a former player passing on some priceless tips to his younger colleagues. And who better for that than Trott, himself a victim of the unrelenting and unforgiving nature of international sport.
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One wonders if it crossed his mind at that moment but exactly 10 years ago, in November 2013, Trott left the Ashes midway due to stress-related anxiety. His description years later sounded more like David Attenborough narrating a wildlife series rather than a scene from a cricket field.
“…they know I am struggling. They’re circled like hyenas around a dying zebra,” he wrote in his book about the Australian bowling unit led by tearaway pacer Mitchell Johnson.
During the peak of his mental health struggles, Trott would hope that a ‘pylon had fallen on the field and the game had been cancelled’. Other times, he’d wish the stadium collapsed. “As long as there was no one in it, of course,” he was quoted as saying by The Independent. “You end up thinking of all sorts of ways you wouldn’t have to go to the ground.”
The anxiety-driven issues consumed the career of one of England’s finest No.3s. Now, the only Englishman still alive in the tournament is the coach of the side that’s the epitome of grit. So much so that his players are not afraid to take a dig at the Aussies. However, fast bowler Naveen ul Haq’s ‘human rights or 2 points’ jibe aimed at the Australians, who had forfeited an ODI series because of the Taliban’s restrictions on women’s rights, may not have been the smartest thing to do.
From zero wins in 2019 to a fairytale run that’s given them more than an outside chance of making it to the semifinals, Afghanistan’s campaign has been hallmarked by their ability to maintain an emotional equilibrium.
It is not a trait normally associated with a bunch of gifted but temperamental cricketers. Trott, though, has played a transformational role on this front since becoming the coach in July last year, dipping into his learnings from success and struggles, more of the latter, to add a layer to a team that was habituated to losing key moments in a crunch tie.
“He is a positive person,” captain Hashmatullah Shahidi says ahead of the Australia tie. “He wants us to be more disciplined on the field and off the field. Sometimes, he goes hard. Sometimes, he assists us.”
Trott’s calming influence on a restless group goes beyond the walls of the dressing room. The careful manner in which Afghanistan have constructed their innings also has shades of Trott’s old-school, low-risk playing style.
Back in 2011, Trott was the World Cup’s fourth-highest run-getter, scoring at a staggering average of 60.28. But he also copped criticism for being ‘too slow’ and his strike rate of 80.84 defined his approach to batting. England’s then coach Andy Flower jumped to Trott’s defence, praising the batsman’s ability to ‘stabilise’ their innings.
Steadiness and stability also define Afghanistan’s batting in this World Cup, who have set themselves 10-over targets and haven’t got too obsessed with high-scoring rates. That change in approach might not have been easy for a generation virtually born-and-bred on T20 cricket.
But Afghanistan have been methodical, especially in their four wins so far. Against England, more than half of the 284 runs they chased came in 1s and 2s and they went almost 10 overs – between 15 and 25 – without a boundary.
While chasing a seemingly challenging total of 286 against Pakistan, only 130 runs came in boundaries and when they played Sri Lanka, Afghanistan’s batsmen did not hit a four or six between overs 11 and 20, with only 106 runs out of the 242 coming in boundaries.
Shahidi alludes to getting a little too emotional to their frequent collapses. “We were good enough before as well but we started thinking how to improve. We were struggling (to control emotions),” he says. “Our openers were doing good but our middle order was struggling. We were thinking about that, how to take responsibility and play according to the situation.”
And how did that change come about? “It’s about the mindset. Sometimes, that is a big thing to make you a good player.”
The openers Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran have continued to lay a solid foundation. And the middle-order, led by Rahmat Shah, seems to have conquered their demons. Sample this: Afghanistan’s middle-order average in ODIs, according to Cricinfo, has increased from 26.44 – the lowest among all full members since the start of 2021 – to 36.93 in the World Cup.
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Trott has said it’s all down to the players getting used to the pace of ODIs but a lot of it is also due to them finding the right emotional balance on and off the field.
And hence, Shahidi did not choose to comment further on his teammate Naveen ul-Haq’s snarky remark against Australia, recalling the episode when they refused to play a bilateral series against Afghanistan and instead chose to forfeit a tie due to the Taliban’s restrictions on women’s rights.
The Afghan captain knows it’s their cricket that has done the talking so far. And as they play one of the most important matches in their history – a win will take Afghanistan ever-so-close to a semifinal spot – Shahidi knows they’ll channel all their underdog spirit against the might of the Aussies.