Former Indian all-rounder Madan Lal criticised Afghanistan’s mundane performance after they suffered an innings and 300 runs loss against India in the one-off Test match against India at New Chandigarh on Monday.
The visitors lasted only three days as they could not provide any challenge to the home team. India posted a gargantuan total of 564 runs on the board, following centuries from KL Rahul and Shubman Gill and half-centuries from Rishabh Pant, Sai Sudharsan, and Washington Sundar.
But Afghanistan was bundled out for a paltry score of 152 runs in the first innings and thus, India decided to enforce the follow-on. The tourists failed to put up any fight in the second essay as they were skittled out for 112 runs. Ergo, India registered their biggest Test win in their history.
Madan Lal said on PTI, “Why are they (Afghanistan) allowed to play Test? I don’t understand the logic behind giving Afghanistan Test status. I also do not understand why affiliate nations are given Test status on the basis of their ODI and T20I records. I feel they should focus on ODIs as they are a very good T20I side. Playing Test is jumping the gun. First, they should learn how to play and last for 50 overs.”
“See, they scored just 152 and 102 in this match. In their previous encounter eight years back, they folded up in 109 and 102 runs. Is this good advertisement for Test cricket? Playing a five-day Test requires a lot of infrastructure and facilities. That is absolutely zero in Afghanistan. So what do they do? The players are not bad. It’s only that they are not used to playing five-day cricket.”
On the other hand, former Indian wicket-keeper bat Saba Karim said we should be more patient with Afghanistan in the red-ball format.
“See, Bangladesh was also not able to play standard Test cricket in the first decade and a half since their debut in 2000. But not very long back, they beat Pakistan in Pakistan. So let’s show a little more patience with a war-ravaged country like Afghanistan,” said Karim (via the aforementioned source).
Afghanistan will now take on India in the first ODI on Saturday.
