Afghanistan coach Pybus calls for better wickets in domestic cricket after series defeat
Afghanistan head coach Richard Pybus has called on his batters to reduce the number of dot balls and improve their strike-rates after it succumed to a seven-wicket defeat in the second T20I against India on Tuesday.
The 62-year-old also suggested that his side could benefit from playing on better wickets in domestic cricket.
“Look, we want good cricket wickets. It’s as simple as that. This is T20 cricket. We’re not trying to make a track spicy for a Test match. We’ve got to be good enough,” Pybus said.
“I do think that one of the things I would suggest to the board, as we did in the West Indies, is to appoint an international curator to achieve a uniform surface.
“And that was more for when we were travelling around the territories in the West Indies when we were playing international matches, to make sure we were getting the wickets that we wanted.
“But I do think we need to make sure that the stadiums have got very specific wickets for our white-ball cricket. We need quality of wickets to develop quality of practice.”
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Pybus suggested his side would have to bat with better intent, saying, “If we’re going to improve as a T20 side, our strike rates have got to improve. Our dot ball percentage is too high and our strike rates have got to improve.”
“India’s par was 10 runs an over. They’ve played their whole IPL, they know how to play on these wickets and their game was developed on these wickets. For us, we don’t have these quality of wickets back in Afghanistan.
He also said that the side would have to look to develop batters capable of maximising the PowerPlay to full effect.
“But we’ve got to develop the players so that our strike power in the Powerplay is… we need to be able to get up there and we need to be able to hold it.
“And again, India has got unbelievable depth. We don’t have a talent pool anywhere remotely as deep as India. So it’s about just working with the players.
“I think you’ll find that the average part for Afghanistan’s PowerPlay is about 45 for one. That’s the stuff that we’ve really got to seriously work on over the next three, six, nine, 12 months.”
He further highlighted the effect that playing on good cricket wickets had on the Indian batters.
“The thing is, you’re playing on the best batting wickets in the world. These players, they’ve learned how to set their game up where they can hit, as you saw today,” he noted.
“You can hit the seamers and the spinners off the top of the length. And they’re unbelievable at it. I think you’ll probably find that your best wickets, best T20 wickets in the world are here.”
(With inputs from PTI)
Published on Sep 16, 2026