Afghanistan and Ireland in Tests-1

Afghanistan and Ireland have each played 3 Tests, including one between themselves. Here is the record of these matches:

Afghanistan have made rapid progress, starting with a two-day defeat in their first Test followed by two wins, the latest against the higher-rated Bangladesh. Ireland have lost all three Tests, putting up a good fight in the first two but abjectly collapsing to 38 all out in the third. They did however dismiss England for 85 in that Test.

We now look at individual performances, starting with

Batting:

Most runs (100 and above):

Rahmat Shah, KJ O’Brien and Asghar Afghan (former Stanikzai) have the most runs. The only centuries are by Rahmat and O’Brien, the latter on debut. Rahmat and Asghar have 3 scores of 50+.

At the other end of the scale, Murtagh became the first No 11 batsman in any Test to score 25+ in each innings during Ireland’s second Test.

Highest innings (75 and above):

Bowling:

Most wickets (8 and above):

Rashid Khan has by far the best total here. He has 3 fivers and the only tenner here. Murtagh is the only other with a fiver.

Best innings bowling (4wi or more):

Note Rashid’s two fivers in the same match, while Murtagh’s 2018 figure is the best on debut from either side. Murtagh also became the first Irish player to appear on the Lord’s honours board.

Best match bowling (6wi and above):

Rashid Khan has the two best performances here.

To be continued

 

 

Ireland’s flop show

After holding their own for the first two days, Ireland collapsed abjectly to an 143-run defeat in their first Test at Lord’s.

From here we can see that their 38 all out

1) is the lowest score at Lord’s, slipping below the 42 by India in 1974.

2) the second shortest innings by balls bowled. The record is 75 balls in South Africa’s 30 all out at Birmingham in 1924. Ireland’s 94-ball effort shares the second spot with England’s 61 all out at Melbourne in 1901-02 as well as South Africa’s other 30 all out, at Port Elizabeth in 1895-96. at Melbourne in 1901-02

It is also one of the rare instances in recent times when two bowlers (Woakes and Broad) ran through a side:

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/282890.html

Interestingly, the last such instance was by England (58 all out under lights) at Auckland in 2017-2018. On that occasion Boult and Southee were the wreckers.

India’s 42 does not appear here, since Old and Arnold together bowled 16 overs and Hendrick bowled the 17th.

England’s first innings score of 85 is not the lowest score by a winning side. More about this here (though it is from 2016 and has not been updated):

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/233412.html

On the positive side:

TJ Murtagh recorded the first fiver (5-13) for Ireland. In their last Test against Afghanistan, he had recorded their third fifty (54*).

He will thus the first Irish player to appear on the Lord’s honours boards.

Murtagh (6-65) and debutant Adair (6-98) now have the best match figures for Ireland. The previous record was 6-100 by Murtagh in their maiden Test against Pakistan.

Naturally, Murtagh has the most wickets (13) for Ireland.

KJ O’Brien has the most runs (258) for Ireland, besides the only century (118) which was in their maiden Test.

Finally, Chris Woakes recorded his third five-wicket haul. All three of them had come at Lord’s, where he took two fivers in the same match against Pakistan in 2016.