Afghanistan coach Pybus: No side can evolve by playing one Test here and there

In an exclusive interview with Sportstar ahead of the three-match series in New Delhi, Pybus spoke about Afghanistan’s development, India’s transition and the challenge of building a team with enough depth across formats. | Photo Credit: RV Moorthy

For Afghanistan, playing India in India is more than another T20I series. It is an opportunity to test a side that has made considerable strides in white-ball cricket, while also giving its players a chance to measure themselves against some of the best in the world.

Afghanistan head coach Richard Pybus, though, sees the bigger picture. The seasoned coach believes the team’s continued growth will depend on greater exposure across formats, particularly Test cricket.

In an exclusive interview with  Sportstar ahead of the three-match series in New Delhi, Pybus spoke about Afghanistan’s development, India’s transition and the challenge of building a team with enough depth across formats.

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What does this T20I series against India mean for your team, and how important is it for the growth of Afghanistan cricket?

Yes, it’s critical. It’s a fantastic opportunity for the side in a format where the strength of the side is the white-ball cricket. We have such a paucity of Test matches. It’s really challenging, even though I’m at the beginning of my tenure as a coach here.

Looking at the previous cricket calendar, it’s a real challenge to develop the Test side when you have so few matches — a series being one game or, at most, two games — and just no continuity.

So, the focus has really been on the evolution of the white-ball side, and the side has done particularly well. They have shown that at previous World Cups, when they’ve got the opportunity to play against the higher-ranked sides.

“Credit to India for helping us. We had three ODIs earlier this year and a Test. We’re back playing against them again, even though we are hosting this time. It’s absolutely fantastic to have that support from India,” Pybus said. | Photo Credit: PTI

But I just think, to play India in India, it just doesn’t get better than that, really. It’s an opportunity, it’s about grabbing eyeballs, it’s the challenge for our players to play against many of the finest T20 players in the world in their own backyard.

It would be lovely to have a little bit of a home-ground advantage. But we’re going to be playing on really good cricket wickets. So, it will just make for a really good spectacle.

You spoke about the limited scope for Test cricket. Do smaller full members need more opportunities to play Test cricket to ensure the game continues to grow across formats?

If you look at this logically, Afghanistan, Ireland and Zimbabwe are full members of the ICC. Now, a full member is a full member. So then, as we are now going into this new FTP cycle, it’s incumbent on the ICC to ensure that full members are getting an equitable distribution of series.

It takes time for countries to evolve. And the greater the exposure, the faster the development.

We have seen Bangladesh now starting to play some really serious cricket across formats. I was with Bangladesh back in 2013, and when I was with Pakistan, we played against Bangladesh. Back in those days, Bangladesh really struggled. They were just coming up; it was right at the beginning of their journey.

The players were almost amateurs. It was an incredible challenge for that Bangladesh side to come so far. So, it takes time for the countries to evolve their game. The greater the exposure, the faster the acceleration in the learning curve, because it’s about learning.

How do you learn to play Test cricket? The only solution is, you have got to be able to play it.

Now, in Afghanistan, there’s absolutely no shortage of talent. We have seen that in white-ball cricket. If you’re gonna play one Test match here and one Test match there, no side can evolve like that.

I can also understand from the perspective of some of the bigger boards. If you put a series together and you’re playing against Afghanistan and Afghanistan don’t have a good track record, you want to put fans on seats and you’ve got broadcast rights. So, in that scenario, how much would they want to invest in that?

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We have got to find the middle ground and create opportunity, and it needs to be a conscious decision.

When I was the director of the West Indies, I realised that even for many of the more senior boards in world cricket, playing Test cricket is about making a loss. There needs to be a really clear strategy about how we are going to continue to develop Test cricket. Now, the game can’t live on just iconic series against the very biggest sides in world cricket.

Of course, there is a huge amount of potential in the other sides, but there really needs to be a will and there needs to be a clear strategy about the road ahead. Otherwise, if you are a full member and if you are not playing a Test match, then what is the point?

If you’re running a cricket board, if you’re the CEO, if you’re the chairman, why would you be spending money to lose money? Why are you going to now spend the huge amount of money that it takes to host a series? Why would you be spending that money when you’ve already got quite a tight budget? Because you know you’re going to lose money.

So I believe there needs to be a strategy from the ICC, and it can’t be predicated on the game here and there. And again, that is doing absolutely nothing for the development.

The England-born tactician is a popular name in the global coaching circuit and has done stints with Bangladesh, West Indies and Pakistan including a number of important domestic gigs in South Africa. | Photo Credit: Shaun Botterill

Could the World Test Championship also be expanded to include teams such as Afghanistan and Ireland?

Look, I’m not offering the solution. What I’m saying is, Test cricket is the highest form of the game. If it’s a case of eyeballs on the game, we know where the eyeballs are on the game, because T20 is the growth area and there’s still plenty of space for that growth to take place.

But we know that when we have really highly competitive Test series, that actually attracts crowds because it’s an incredible spectacle when you’ve got strength versus strength. So that needs to be the strategy in terms of being able to develop these Test sides.

Credit to India for helping us. We had three ODIs earlier this year and a Test. We’re back playing against them again, even though we are hosting this time. It’s absolutely fantastic to have that support from India. And I’d like to think we’re going to put up a really good showing in these T20s.

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How much of an advantage is it for both teams to play the entire series at one venue in Delhi?

I don’t mind. At the end of the day, I don’t know if it’s an opportunity that we’re going to leverage, given the nature of the T20 cricket. The surfaces are really good. It’s not like we’re gonna be trying to fix a surface to accommodate Afghanistan’s strengths and weaknesses.

I believe it needs to be strength versus strength in terms of the format. So, I really don’t think there’s much factor in terms of where we play. And T20 is a game where the challenge is about the bowlers being able to measure the batters, really.

Afghanistan is one of the smaller boards in world cricket, so from a revenue perspective, it’s not realistic to keep moving matches all over, so hosting all matches in one venue is easier from a hosting perspective.

In terms of cricket, it’s about making sure we’re clear about what we’ve got to deliver over these next three matches.

Ibrahim Zadran is starting as T20I captain. What are your expectations, and what has been the focus in the camp?

This is my first T20 series with the guys. What’s really positive for me is that they’re a highly experienced group of T20 players. In the last few T20 World Cups, they turned up, they proved themselves. A lot of the guys have played a lot of cricket in India. So, it’s not like you are travelling to a foreign land and you don’t know how to play in these conditions. They are familiar.

There are some really, really good match-ups. So it’s an opportunity for us to win the T20 series. I know the gap between the Test sides and us is big, and I also know that we did not play our best cricket in the ODI series against India last time, but I would hope to put up a better show when we play an ODI again.

But when you play against a top side, which over the years has dominated almost every format, we need to play to our strengths. Even though the Indian T20 side is slightly in transition, you’re playing against some of the great players in the home conditions.

But in this format, we’ve also got some wonderful players. So it’s a most fantastic opportunity for us, really. It gives us a chance to show what we can do to win games.

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As you mentioned, India’s T20I side is in a transition phase. Do the recent results against England and Ireland give Afghanistan any psychological advantage?

This goes back to teams in their stage of development. Historically, when sides would go from the subcontinent and play around the world, particularly in this scenario, the Indian players don’t often play in other leagues.

The only time they can get experience in England is when they’re playing series there. And going to Ireland — I mean, we just came off the back of a series in Ireland, and we spent some time there preparing and really working on adjusting to the pace and wickets, because the wickets in Ireland are slow.

They aren’t the type of wickets you’re facing in white-ball cricket in India, where the wickets are rock hard, the ball comes onto the bat, you can hit through the ball. It’s a totally different game.

And then you go to England. So, for the development of these Indian players, you need cycle after cycle after cycle of being able to go and tour England and get used to the wickets. They are very different.

And I don’t know that this group of players has yet got enough series — the type of volume of series that the great Indian players would have gone to England for historically.

INTENSITY UP! 🔥#AfghanAtalan are turning up the intensity as they gear up for their much-anticipated international assignment against India. 💪#AFGvIND | #GloriousNationVictoriousTeampic.twitter.com/saT7UIeF4E

— Afghanistan Cricket Board (@ACBofficials) September 9, 2026

And if you think back to the amount of games that (Sachin) Tendulkar, (Rahul) Dravid, (VVS) Laxman and (MS) Dhoni and all the great players would have played, how many times they would have toured England to build up that body of experience?

T20 is unforgiving. I do think that one of the things is that England have found themselves with a pretty decent set of fast bowlers, with some guys who have got some really good control.

They’ve got some guys who’ve got some serious pace, like top-level pace, and people don’t know how to bowl in England.

Much as the Indian fans would absolutely love it for India to be able to travel around the world and knock everybody off, I think with this side in transition, it’s gonna take time for them to build up that body of experience.

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And again, it’s easier for some of the players who have the opportunities to play in the leagues to be able to build up that experience. So I’m not reading too much into that.

Indian players in India, on the types of surfaces which they’re used to in the IPL, they know the wickets. When you play at home, literally all the players have got experience and typically have got a body of success in playing on the home wickets.

But I just think, when you play against a side which is really, really comfortable in their home conditions, they play so much cricket off the back of the IPL, travelling around, playing on these grounds, on really, really good cricketing wickets, where there can be negligible movement.

Literally, you can hit the ball off the bounce. The ground in Delhi, it’s a small ground. It’s gonna be a high-scoring ground because the boundary is probably maximum about 65 metres, right?

So, it’s going to be a challenge for both sides, because of our sort of ball striking. So, yeah, it’s gonna be really exciting. I mean, for me as a coach, I’m really excited about it. And I think our guys are, too.

How do you see the contest between Afghanistan’s spinners and India’s young batters such as Abhishek Sharma and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi?

We’ve got some really, really fantastic spinners. They’re not orthodox spinners. It’s just an incredible phenomenon in Afghanistan, developing these spinners who’ve got such a range of skills, and not necessarily spinners who are just orthodox, where you are really relying on drift and spin, etc.

I think our spinners are gonna be a really interesting challenge for the Indian batters.

Afghanistan’s middle order has been inconsistent at times. Is that a concern?

It’s our job to continue the development of the team. We’ve got players in the squad who’ve done really well in domestic cricket. It’s about us creating the opportunity to be able to help them develop their game.

Coming out of the Shpageeza League, which finished a while ago, there were some players who put some fantastic numbers together, and some of those players have been out going and playing around the leagues.

They’ve been out playing in the CPL, The Hundred. So, they’re getting this experience. So let’s see what our lads can produce.