Coach Andy Moles has admitted that Afghanistan did not give a "true reflection" of themselves in their World Cup defeat to Bangladesh on Wednesday.
The Afghans restricted their Group A opponents to 267 in Canberra, but their chase never got going and they were eventually bowled out 102 runs short.
While Moles made it clear that his side had no reason to be ashamed of their World Cup debut, he conceded that their batting display was not good enough.
"We're disappointed with our performance today," he is quoted by Sky Sports News as saying. "We haven't disgraced ourselves, but that wasn't a true reflection of the work that we do in preparation and the way we play our cricket.
"We genuinely thought we could win the game but we just didn't get out of the blocks with the bat. We were in a fog and before we knew it we were one, two, three down and treading water.
"Not many teams come back from that in any game of cricket. We had a couple of good partnerships but they didn't go on long enough."
Afghanistan are back in action when they face Sri Lanka in Dunedin on Saturday.
Joe Fish
