Former Indian cricketer Aakash Chopra has opined that Afghanistan may have missed a trick by not playing Noor Ahmad in their T20 World Cup 2026 opener against New Zealand in Chennai on Sunday. The CSK spinner, who finished as the leading wicket-taker for the franchise in IPL 2025, was left out of the playing XI in the team, leaving Rashid Khan and Mujeeb ur Rahman to fend for themselves in the contest. The exclusion may have backfired on AFG as they lost the game by 5 wickets.
‘Not playing Noor…’
In a video on his YouTube channel, Chopra opined that not playing Noor in Chennai where he plays the IPL proved costly for Afghanistan. For the record, the Afghanistan spinner picked up 24 wickets in 14 matches for CSK in IPL 2025, out of which 12 of his wickets came from 6 games which were played at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, including a best spell of 4/18.
“I wasn’t sure how Afghanistan would do in batting. They did alright in batting, but it’s the bowling. The sharpness was not seen in the bowling. They didn’t play Noor. They said that it didn’t seem like the cracks would trouble. Not playing Noor on the Chennai ground where he plays the IPL proved a little too costly,” Chopra said.
No Noor, no problem: Trott
Meanwhile, Afghanistan head coach Jonathan Trott defended the decision to exclude Noor from Afghanistan’s playing XI in the game against New Zealand. Speaking at the post-match press conference, the head coach said that while the selection was correct, the bowlers did not perform as per expectations. Trott claimed that while Noor has a good experience of playing in Chennai, the team was playing on new wickets a the venue.
“Hindsight is always a nice thing or a dangerous thing as well. I didn’t think it was going to spin a huge amount as well. I know Noor has got experience playing here, but these are new wickets, so it’s not like he would have bowled on them before. There is that, but you always think whenever you lose, you wish you could have done things a little bit differently, don’t you?,” Trott said.
