New Afghanistan coach Kabir Khan has vowed to add mental toughness to the side's natural talents as he prepares his side for the Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 4.

After winning the Division 5 title in Jersey, defeating the hosts in a dramatic low-scoring final, Afghanistan's dreams for a place in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 are very much alive.

Khan, a former Pakistan international and who boasts coaching experience with the United Arab Emirates, is spending his first week as coach of Afghanistan in his home city of Peshawar as his charges prepare for the challenge of playing in the Division 4 event in Tanzania which begins on 4 October.

'I only have 15 days to work with the team before the start of the tournament, which is probably not enough,' said 34-year-old Khan.

'They don't need a lot of coaching cricketing wise – they just need help with the mental side of the game.

'The standard of bowling and fielding is excellent, but sometimes the batting lets the side down.

'I have tried to talk to them about cricket. We were playing a practice game on Monday and I was just talking them through the match stage by stage, telling them when to attack and hit the ball for boundaries.

'They had never had that side of the game taught to them before.'

Afghanistan will need to finish in the top two of the six-team tournament, where they will face tough challenges from the likes of Hong Kong, who won the ACC Trophy Elite 2008, and Italy, who defeated the Netherlands in the ICC European Championships Division 1 in July, if it is to make it through to the Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 3 in Argentina in January.

From there the top two sides will join a further ten countries to battle to win one of the four places for ICC Associate and Affiliate Members at the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011.

Afghanistan, whose former coach Taj Malik stepped down after a change of cricket administration in the country, reached Division 4 after winning the previous stage of qualifying, bringing the side to the attention of the cricketing world. Indeed the side has even been subject of a film documentary, Out of the Ashes, which focuses on Afghanistan's efforts to reach world cricket's biggest stage.

After the low-scoring final in Jersey, that saw Hasti Gul inspire his side to a two-wicket win when chasing just 81 for victory, Afghanistan crashed to a semi-final defeat in the ACC Trophy Elite 2008 against Hong Kong. It crumbled to 129 all out off just 43.4 overs, just 25 runs short off its target.

It is this area of Afghanistan's game which causes most concern for Khan,

'If you saw the scores of our games before, our batting has always been low scoring because we have always been batting a few overs short – in a 50-over match we often batted for just 40 overs,' said Khan.

'We need to use all the 50 overs, as we have a very good bowling attack, and if we get a score of 230 on the board we will be hard to beat.'

Confidence in the camp, which will run for the next few days ahead of the side's return to Kabul, is high and Khan has a real belief in the ability of his players.

'The team has the potential to be promoted. I was the national coach of the UAE and I don't see any difference in standard between our team and players who played in the World Cricket League Division 2 and the Intercontinental Cup,' he said.

Although the focus of the side, who will look to the likes of fast bowler Habid Hassan to star, will be on making it through to Division 3, Khan believes that if Afghanistan progress they have the potential to do well in the next stages of the competition as well.

'If we qualify for the next stage I hope the team will do well in that event as well,' admitted Khan.

'Talent wise we are very good. I have seen a lot of players who have played Division 2 and Division 3 cricket and this is the most talented side I have seen.'

Afghanistan will begin its campaign against Fiji on 4 October, with crunch games likely to be against Hong Kong and Italy on the 8 and 9 October respectively.