ICC World Cup 2019 | Gulbadin Naib backs Rashid Khan to bounce back stronger after England hammering

One of the finest stars of the IPL in the last two or three years, Rashid Khan was at the receiving end of a batting onslaught by England led by Eoin Morgan. Afghanistan, who sit at the bottom of the points table with five losses, face an unbeaten Indian side in Southampton on Saturday. 

Skipper Naib acknowledges that any bowler could have such a poor day at the office and he backs his strike bowler to recover in today’s game against India. 

"I know it's happened to every player, you face a day like this. Everyone knows, in cricket or life in general, you have a phase of good days and also bad days. So that's one of the bad days of Rashid Khan, if I look at it. But Rashid, I think he's one of the strongest mind players now, so he learns everything very quickly. He's just focusing on the present and the future. So that's the best thing about Rashid," Naib said at the pre-match press conference, reported PTI. 

While Naib admitted that his team’s performance was below par in the opening four games, he said that they had a lot of positives from the loss against England. Furthermore, he reckons that Afghanistan must find a way to play more matches during the season against the top teams. 

“The England game was a positive for us we were able to bat 50 overs. "We want to improve our experience, so we should play against the good teams like India, Australia, South Africa, Pakistan. If you are targeting like the top five or top six teams, we should play a lot with them,” the Afghan skipper concluded.