‘What kind of team are they going to pick?’ – Ian Smith lashes out at New Zealand after getting thwacked by Afghanistan

Ian Smith and New Zealand Team. (Photo Source: Twitter/ICC)

Afghanistan outclassed New Zealand in the latter’s first T20 World Cup 2024 game. The Kiwis won the toss and invited Afghanistan to bat first and they posted a challenging 159 runs on a slow track. While chasing, the Kiwis looked jittery and succumbed after scoring just 75 runs. Former New Zealand cricketer, Ian Smith has come hard on the Kiwis and criticized their rusty and disorganized game.

Besides Glenn Phillips and Matt Henry, who scored 18 and 12 runs respectively, no batter even breached the two-digit run mark. Fazalhaq Farooqi was all over the Kiwi batters as he plucked four wickets, giving away just 17 runs. The whole of the chase saw only five boundaries and one maximum. Smith lamented that the management New Zealand bring have no experience of playing cricket.

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“They’ve got to beat the West Indies, and hope that they (West Indies) get beaten by Afghanistan, because New Zealand’s run rate situation is so poor we’re going to be very behind the eight ball when it comes to that,” said Smith as quoted by TOI.

“I just don’t know they’re going to get up to speed from the flat performance they had the other day (against Afghanistan). What kind of team are they going to pick? Are they going to make any changes? The people they bring in haven’t played any cricket either,” he added.

Devon Conway looked decidedly rusty: Smith

Devon Conway made a comeback to the New Zealand playing XI in the first game after recuperation from a finger injury. Conway has been off the cricket field for a while now and even missed the Indian Premier League 2024 for the Chennai Super Kings. Smith dissected that the wicketkeeper-batter looked rusty and out of touch as he scored just eight runs facing 10 balls while opening.

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“He (Conway) looked decidedly rusty, in fact very average, he looked down on practice with the gloves on. And he’s been out of form with the bat for a little while. Apart from the fact that he’s had injures, Conway played no cricket in the IPL even though he was contracted, and still they maintained they didn’t need to have anything like a specialist wicketkeeper in this tournament,” Smith concluded.