Veteran commentator Aakash Chopra added that the presence of several quality cricketers has helped Afghanistan perform better than Pakistan in the 2024 T20 World Cup. He also shared that the Afghans are similar to the West Indians in that regard. However, Pakistan were knocked out of the ongoing T20 World Cup before the Super Eights. On the other hand, Afghanistan have made it to the next stage as well.

In a video shared on his YouTube channel, Chopra said, “The thing that goes in favor of Afghanistan is that all of them play T20 cricket a lot. You can see (Mohammad) Nabi, (Rahmanullah) Gurbaz, Rashid (Khan), Noor (Ahmad), Fazal (Fazalhaq Farooqi), Naveen-ul-Haq and Azmatullah Omarzai. They have lots and lots of T20 cricketers. Gulbadin Naib was playing recently for Delhi (Capitals). All of them are proper T20 players. They play a lot of T20s in different, different places. So they have glimpses of West Indies, where people go and play in different, different places and then try to assemble and play together.”

Meanwhile, The West Indies are the other team to qualify for the Super Eights from Group C as well. Rashid Khan and company will face the Windies in their final group game in Saint Lucia on Monday, June 17 as well. However, Aakash Chopra opined on an area where Afghanistan have an advantage over the West Indies.

“Unlike the West Indies, there are no leadership issues. Assembling everyone is never a problem as they come from one country and talk similarly. Everyone has the same interest and inclination. West Indies have players from different countries because it is a collection of countries,” Aakash Chopra concluded. “It’s difficult to bring together a collection of countries. There are a lot of problems in the selection process. There is nothing like that here, and that’s why Afghanistan cricket is doing well at least in T20s. In fact, they had the same unit in ODIs as well and that also did well.”