AFG vs ZIM, 1st Test — Day 1 Stumps: Zimbabwe 326/5, Afghanistan Yet to Bat, After Brendan Taylor's First Test Hundred Since 2018

Some hundreds are about the runs. This one was also about the years. Brendan Taylor made 131 in Sharjah, his seventh Test century and his first since November 2018, a stretch that includes long spells with few Tests for Zimbabwe and the three-and-a-half-year ban he served for breaching the ICC's anti-corruption code. He was out to a part-timer after tea, but by then Zimbabwe had the day.

They finished it on 326 for 5 from 87 overs. Afghanistan had one good hour, taking three wickets for 25 in the final session. Either side of it, as the scorecard makes plain, it was Zimbabwe's day.

Innocent Kaia was the busier opener and the luckier one. In the third over Mohammad Saleem jagged one back into his pad from just short of a good length; it was given not out, it may have been going over, and with no DRS in this match there was no way to know. Kaia then hooked Saleem without control to Ziaur Rahman at deep fine leg, who dropped it, and edged left-arm spinner Zia-ur-Rehman past the slips for four in the 11th over. Zimbabwe were 45 for 0 at the first drinks.

His dismissal was an odd one. Qais Ahmad tossed one up on middle and leg, Kaia went down to sweep, played too early, and the ball came off the back of his bat to first slip. He made 34 off 51 and the stand was 60. Taylor came in and was soon on the move. Zimbabwe went to lunch on 104 for 1, Curran 39 and Taylor 25.

Taylor reached his fifty off 67 balls. Ben Curran, who had been patient for 113 balls, was beaten by a searing yorker from Saleem that angled in and hit the stumps, and Saleem, who might have had a wicket in the third over, let Curran know about it. Curran made 42; the second-wicket stand was 65 and Zimbabwe were 125 for 2.

From the 35th over to the 69th, Taylor and Brian Bennett were in control. They started slowly, then took singles off Zia-ur-Rehman easily and hit him for the odd boundary. All four of Taylor's sixes came off him. At tea Zimbabwe were 213 for 2, Taylor 95 and Bennett 36.

Taylor got there in the first over after tea, upper-cutting a short ball from Saleem for four, his hundred coming off 135 balls. The century stand followed, in 145 balls. Then Hashmatullah Shahidi brought himself on with his occasional offspin, flighted one around off stump, and Taylor, trying to hit it inside-out over cover, miscued to long-off. He went for 131 off 168, and the stand was 137, of which he had made 88 off 123 balls to Bennett's 49 off 77.

Zia-ur-Rehman, who had been taken apart by Taylor for much of the day, then had Craig Ervine lbw for 4 and the debutant Antum Naqvi caught down the leg side for 9, though there was some doubt whether bat had touched ball. From 262 for 2 Zimbabwe were 287 for 5. Bennett, who reached his fifty off 84 balls, and Wessly Madhevere then added 39 off 47 balls, and Afghanistan took the second new ball in the final over of the day without further reward.

Zimbabwe will be very pleased. They have 326 on the board with Bennett still there, and a lower order of Madhevere, Tafadzwa Tsiga, Graeme Cremer, Newman Nyamhuri and Blessing Muzarabani to help him push on. The only blemish is the 25-run, three-wicket wobble after Taylor fell.

Afghanistan will look at a day of near misses: the lbw shout and the dropped hook off Kaia in the first hour, and a lot of runs off their main spinner. Zia-ur-Rehman bowled 30 overs for 118 and got two wickets at the end; Saleem, 16-4-44-1, was the most threatening bowler. It was their captain's part-time offspin that broke the big stand.

The surface was slow. Taylor's hundred-bringing boundary came off a short ball from Saleem that did not rise as expected, and the batters found it easy enough to milk the spinners once set. Saleem's movement off the seam in the first hour, and his yorker to Curran, showed that pace bowling with skill could still get results. Zimbabwe will hope it starts to turn once Afghanistan bat.

He came in at 60 for 1 and played as though he had been waiting to do this for a long time, which in a sense he had. He was on 43 off 45 balls when Curran fell, with five fours and two sixes already, and then he settled down and let Bennett find his feet. The sixes off Zia-ur-Rehman were a statement; the way he paced the stand was craft. A man eight years from his last Test hundred, walking off to applause in Sharjah, is a reminder that this game keeps its doors open longer than we sometimes think.

Our match preview had the venue right: Sharjah Cricket Stadium. Beyond that, Day 1 was not kind to it. We said the key session could be the first morning and that Afghanistan needed early inroads from Fazalhaq Farooqi and Rashid Khan; Zimbabwe were 104 for 1 at lunch, and neither Farooqi nor Rashid, nor Noor Ahmad or Azmatullah Omarzai, bowled a ball on the first day. We said UAE pitches offer pace in the first session, and Saleem did trouble Kaia early, so that much held.

The Zimbabwe side we wrote about was largely not the one that played. We built our preview around Sean Williams, Sikandar Raza, Tendai Chatara, Luke Jongwe, Ryan Burl, Dion Myers and Regis Chakabva; none is in this XI. Of the names we highlighted, only Craig Ervine and Blessing Muzarabani are. And we did not mention Brendan Taylor at all. Our verdict made Afghanistan slight favourites; one day in, that looks generous, and we should have checked the squads more carefully.

Afghanistan have a new ball that is barely a ball old, and Bennett on 71. If they can get him early, the Zimbabwe tail is there to be bowled at. If Bennett and Madhevere bat through the morning, Zimbabwe could be looking at 400. Then the question turns round: how Afghanistan's batters cope with Muzarabani and the Zimbabwe attack on a slow surface, chasing a big first-innings total.