Afghanistan head coach Jonathan Trott believes his team doesn't have any baggage of success or failure in the semifinals of the World Cup like their opponents South Africa who have never gone past this stage in any of the mega events, ODI and T20I. Due to the same reasons, Trott reckons pressure will be on Aiden Markram and his men while Afghanistan have nothing to lose as this is the first time they are playing in the semis.
Rashid Khan's troops have turned this World Cup on its head knocking out New Zealand first from the group stage and then beating Australia and Bangladesh to make it to the semis for the first time. They will now be eyeing a place in the final, again for the first time in their short cricketing history. "We go into the semi-final with no scarring or no history with regards to semi-finals.
"This is uncharted territory for us. We're just going to go out there and give it our all. There's no preconceived ideas on it all, or history of failure or success in semi-finals in past years. For us it's a new challenge, and I think that makes us dangerous in the semi-finals as a side with nothing to lose and obviously a lot of pressure on the opposition,"Trott said.
Meanwhile, South Africa head coach Rob Walter is of the opinion that the current crop of players have not had to deal with earlier heartbreaks and that they are coming off close wins in majority of the last seven matches at the T20 World Cup. "The near misses in the past, they belong to the people who missed them. To be honest, this team is a different team. We own whatever is ours to own. And so, our nearest reflection point is this tournament where we've managed to get over the line. So that's what we think about," Walter said.
