After almost snatching victory twice from South Africa before losing off the last ball of the second Super Over – which has all but taken away their chances of advancing to the Super Eight – who could blame Afghanistan for engaging in a little comfort eating?

”We were in Ahmedabad and we told the manager to order food. Peshawari food: their dal bukhara, dal makhani, I told him to order that and bring some tandoori chicken so that we can vent our anger on that,” a jovial Rashid Khan said in Delhi, where his team will play UAE in their third T20 World Cup 2026 match.

Among the rich, buttery flavours of their dinner, Afghanistan were reminded not to lay blame on anyone for what happened in one of the tensest matches the format has ever seen and rather be proud of the part they played in it. “No one should say that he did this or he did that because it brings negativity in the team,” he said. “No one has lost, just our team has lost. We put in a lot of effort, but we never blame any player for being in a Super Over. I always tell everyone that as a captain I don’t want to hear any of these things. It disappoints me more than the game when you’re blaming the players. We all put in the effort.”

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But that doesn’t mean Rashid has got over the loss and likened it to losing to Australia at the 2023 ODI World Cup in Mumbai.

“To be honest, it’s pretty hard,” he said. “It’s very, very hard to lose that game where we had it in our hand a couple of times and then it just slips off your hand and it disappoints you. It doesn’t go away from your mind. Like, the game we played against Australia in the 2023 World Cup at Wankhede, it never goes out of the mind, until we won against them in the 2024 World Cup. And then slowly it got out of the mind.”

In that match in Mumbai, Afghanistan were on track to reach the semi-finals – they scored 291 for 5 and had Australia 91 for 7 before Glenn Maxwell’s once-in-a-lifetime double-century knocked them out. And guess what they did?

Azmatullah Omarzai sent back Tristan Stubbs for his second wicket AFP/Getty Images

“After the game that night, we all gathered in the manager’s room, called all the players to come up there,” Rashid said. “We had a good dinner and just talked positively, just to keep supporting each other. I feel like this is so important.

“The only message I was giving to the players is, this is the time we have to stick together and we have to keep our heads up. If we don’t let ourselves down, we can achieve bigger things. But if we let ourselves down, it’s going to disappoint us. It’s going to just push us one or two years back, and that’s something which we don’t want.

“So we learn from it, we keep moving, we keep our heads up and we put effort. We haven’t got the result, but the effort was there, which was more pleasing than anything else.”

In the immediate term, Afghanistan will have to deal with the likelihood of exiting this tournament at the group stage. Given that they lost to both New Zealand and South Africa, they have to beat both UAE and Canada and then hope UAE beat South Africa and Canada beat New Zealand, which will leave them relying on net run-rate. That means, barring a string of upsets, 2024’s semi-finalists will fail to reach the next round, which hurts Rashid because it undoes so much of what the team have done to ensure they could compete here.

“In the one or one and a half years, we worked hard for this to get the result and sometimes it doesn’t go your way,” he said. “It is quite challenging, I feel like out of 100 times, if you got the success 99 times, the one time you don’t get it, people will talk about that one time, and they forget (the good results) and that’s something which is more challenging. To keep that level high, I feel it’s quite challenging but it’s fun as well. Like you don’t need to do many different things, you have to bring your own skills and that skill comes from practice. The more hard work you put in the practice, the more control you have over your skills in the game. So it is pressure, but it’s enjoyable as well.”

And Rashid was given even more reason to feel cheerful when one of the local reporters, who heard how much he misses home, suggested he head to Lajpat Nagar, an area of South East Delhi, which has a strong Afghan community. Rashid can’t go, but for a very good reason: “Before, we used to go when we weren’t very famous. Now it’s a bit difficult.”

How’s that for swag?