BAN vs AFG 2019: Rahmat Shah Creates New Record for Afghanistan Cricket Team

Afghanistan batsman Rahmat Shah became the first Afghanistan player to score a hundred in Test cricket on Thursday. With this century, he joined the elite Test club of those players who have scored the first centuries for their respective countries.

Rahmat Shah reached the century on the first day of Afghanistan’s only Test against Bangladesh at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chittagong. Afghanistan won the toss and elected to bat first in the Test. Although, they have lost the opener Ihsanullah very early and Rahmat came into the middle in the 13th over.

He stitched a 120-run stand with former skipper Asghar Afghan and at the end of the first session, he was on 97. He finally reached the feat with a boundary off Nayeem Hassan. However, he failed to stay long after that. He went for a drive off the next ball of Nayeem Hasan but got a thick edge. Soumya Sarkar at first slip did no mistake to grab it.

Although Shah became the first Afghanistan player to score a Test century, it was Mohammad Shahzad scored the first hundred for Afghanistan both in One Day Internationals and Twenty20 Internationals in 2009 and 2016 respectively.

Rahmat Shah had previously scored 98 in their last Test against Ireland in Dehradun. With his century, now all 12 Test-playing countries have a centurion. However, the only team who had played Test cricket without having a centurion is the World XI where Graeme Smith was the captain for only one Test against Australia in 2005. Former India player Virender Sehwag’s 76 was the highest score for them in that Test match.

Earlier on the day, Afghanistan spinner, as well as the captain Rashid Khan, became the youngest player ever to lead a test team when he captained the team in their one-off Test match against Bangladesh. Aged 20 years and 350 days, he broke a 15-year record that held by former Zimbabwe wicketkeeper Tatenda Taibu in 2004. He was eight days older than Rashid Khan when he captained his side against Sri Lanka in Harare.