Afghanistan batter Rahmanullah Gurbaz on Friday revealed that he has been taking batting tips from India's batting talisman Virat Kohli and World Cup-winning captain MS Dhoni on how to improve his performance. In the recently concluded three-match T20I series against Afghanistan, Gurbaz notched up 87 runs in 3 innings. In the last T20I, he smashed a half-century in 32 balls and stitched up a 93-run stand with Ibrahim Zadran giving his team a chance to fight back against India.
Speaking to ANI, Gurbaz said, "I always talked to Virat and MS Dhoni about how to improve my cricket. I have a lot of things in my mind and I have to work on it. I was talking to Virat (bhai) about my cricket journey and how should i grow, and reach the next level."
The final T20I saw double Super Over drama as Afghanistan managed to pull a rabbit out of the hat and level India's mammoth total of 212 and push the game to super over. It needed not one but two Super Overs to finally decide the winner of the match on Wednesday.
"It was a good learning for us. This kind of game can happen. We also enjoyed the game and learned a lot from it. Playing against players like Virat and Rohit Sharma gave us a lot of confidence and learning. I hope we get a lot of series against India in future," Gurbaz said.
"We put our all in the World Cup and it was a hard-fought competition. There are some places we need to improve. I hope next time we will not make these kind of mistakes," the Afghanistan opener added.
The 22-year-old Afghanistan batter is currently representing Dubai Capitals in the second edition of the International League T20 - ILT20, starting on Friday.
Gurbaz expressed excitement about playing in the ILT20 and said, " I am excited to play. Really excited about the competition, especially playing in good weather. "
During the time of the 2023 ODI World Cup in India, a video of Gurbaz went viral in which he was seen discreetly distributing money to the less fortunate on the streets of Ahmedabad during Diwali.
Talking about the video Gurbaz said that he wants people to spread humanity and help everyone in need.
"Everyone should help each other. I went outside for a walk at night and saw people sleeping on the road and I just felt so bad for them that I decided to help them with whatever I had. We need to help each other it does not matter where we are from. We need to respect humanity. India and Afghanistan people are like same and we support each other in every situation. I think we should support each other in this kind of situation too. I did not want to share this kind of thing on social media. Someone made this kind of video which is a good message for everyone that help each other," he added.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)