Zimbabwe and Afghanistan drew a flat-track, high-scoring first Test at Sharjah after both teams surpassed 500 in their first innings
Craig Ervine stole the show with an unbeaten 206, becoming Zimbabwe's oldest Test double-centurion at 41 years and 82 days
Ervine also crossed 2,000 Test runs during his marathon knock, making him just the sixth player history to score a Test double-hundred after turning 40
Zimbabwe and Afghanistan played out a high-scoring draw in the first Test at Sharjah, with Zimbabwe electing to bat first. Brendan Taylor made 131 and captain Brian Bennett added 128 in an opening total of 504. Taylor’s hundred briefly made him Zimbabwe’s oldest Test centurion.
Afghanistan matched them stroke for stroke. Sediqullah Atal, Rahmanullah Zadran and skipper Rahmat Shah all made centuries in a reply of 514, and Shah’s 173 helped build a record eighth-wicket stand of 92 and a slender 10-run lead.
The pitch stayed flat and lifeless, which meant a result never looked likely. In the second innings Zimbabwe batted the game out. Taylor made 82, Bennett 58 and Antum Naqvi 62, but the day belonged to Craig Ervine.
A Veteran Rewrites The Record Books
Ervine finished unbeaten on 206 off 279 balls, with 23 fours and two sixes. His hundred had already made him Zimbabwe’s oldest Test centurion at 41 years and 82 days, passing Taylor’s mark from the same match. He then kept going to the double.
That makes him the third-oldest player to score a Test double hundred. He is only the sixth to do it after turning 40, and the first since 1994, a rare place for a batter whose career has stretched across more than a decade.
The innings also carries wider significance. His hundred put him second only to Pakistan’s Misbah-ul-Haq among the oldest Test centurions this century. It was his fifth Test hundred, and during the match he also passed 2,000 Test runs, becoming the seventh Zimbabwean to reach that mark.
His previous hundred came nearly two years ago, when he scored 104 against the same opposition in Bulawayo. The new knock is more than double that score, built over nearly a full day of patient batting on a surface that rewarded concentration over flair.
The match ended in a draw, but Ervine’s innings will be remembered long after the scoreline is forgotten.
