AFG vs ZIM, 1st Test — Day 5 Result: Match Drawn as Ervine's 206* and Madhevere's Maiden Hundred Close Out a Run Feast

By Monday morning this Test had already told everyone what it was going to be. Over four days the bowlers had taken 23 wickets for 1,182 runs, and Zimbabwe, 154 ahead with seven wickets left, had no realistic way to bowl Afghanistan out twice on a pitch that refused to break up. So the last day became something else: a long, hot rehearsal for the second Test, and a day for two Zimbabwe batters to put their names in the record books.

Craig Ervine finished on 206 not out. Wessly Madhevere made his first Test hundred. Between them they put on 208 for the sixth wicket without being separated, and by the close Zimbabwe had 523 for 5 to go with their 504 in the first innings. No team had ever made 500 in both innings of a Test before. Across five days the match produced 1,541 runs for 25 wickets.

Brian Bennett, Zimbabwe's captain, brought up his fifty in the first over and then lost his leg stump to Mohammad Saleem before drinks, out for 58 with the score 175. That brought in Antum Naqvi, playing his first Test, and he chose to stay rather than score. Saleem tested him with a seven-over spell of short balls, and Naqvi took the blows on his body. His first boundary came off the 102nd ball he faced. He reached a maiden Test fifty off 110 balls and made 61 before he was caught off Abdul Malik, having added 140 with Ervine in 253 balls.

Then the mood changed. Madhevere scored his first fifty at a run a ball, slowed down as the hundred got close, and reached it off 108 balls. Ervine kept sweeping, using his long reach to drag balls from wide outside off around behind square, and in one over hit Abdul Malik for six, four and six. He reached his hundred after lunch, becoming the second-oldest man to make a Test hundred since 2000 after Misbah-ul-Haq, and later the third-oldest to make a Test double-hundred, per ESPNcricinfo. He finished with 23 fours and two sixes from 279 balls. Not bad for a man who made 4 in the first innings.

Rahmat Shah, Afghanistan's captain and their best batter in this Test with 173, made a sensible decision on the final day. He protected his main bowlers for the second Test and gave the afternoon and evening to his part-timers. He did not even take the second new ball, though the old one was so scuffed it had lost its seam. Eight bowlers were used in the innings. Zia-ur-Rehman, the left-arm spinner, bowled 50 overs for 173, on top of 46 overs in the first innings.

There was one moment of friction. When Shahidullah strayed down the leg side, umpire Rashid Riaz called a wide to discourage negative bowling, which led to a discussion with Shah. It was the only argument in a day that otherwise had no tension at all. Afghanistan leave with plenty from the Test: three hundreds in their first innings, and a lead of 10 when they could have been behind. What they did not find was a way to take 20 wickets.

This was the story of the match. The Sharjah pitch stayed flat and slow for five days. There were small signs of reverse swing when Saleem was bowling to Naqvi in the morning, and they disappeared as quickly as they came. The spinners, who usually come into it from the third day in the UAE, found no real turn. Ervine and Madhevere were batting more freely at the end of the fifth day than most batters did on the first. If the groundstaff prepare a similar surface for the second Test, expect more of the same.

Ervine's double-hundred came on the day the result was already settled. Brendan Taylor's runs came when the match was still open. His 131 in the first innings, in a 137-run stand with Bennett, set up Zimbabwe's 504. His 82 off 88 balls on the fourth evening, ended only by a run-out mix-up, turned a slim deficit into a lead that made Zimbabwe safe. It was attacking batting on a pitch where most people were content to wait, and it was the reason Zimbabwe, not Afghanistan, were the ones in control on the last day.

Our preview called this a genuinely competitive contest with Afghanistan holding a slight edge for knowing the conditions. Competitive it was, with neither side ever more than 10 runs apart on first innings. But we got the pitch wrong. We expected UAE conditions to offer pace early and spin later; this surface offered neither, and that is why it ended in a draw. We picked out Craig Ervine as part of Zimbabwe's batting backbone, and he delivered a double-hundred, though only after a first-innings 4. Rashid Khan, whom we called the key figure, did not play, and Tendai Chatara, one of the seamers we named, was not in Zimbabwe's XI either. Those are misses we will own.

The second Test starts on November 13, four days from now, with the series level at 0-0. Afghanistan's bowlers, rested on the last afternoon, will need a way to take 20 wickets, and the toss may matter more if the new pitch has any life in it. Watch Newman Nyamhuri, who took a maiden five-wicket haul in Afghanistan's innings, and whether Zimbabwe's batters can keep this form against a fresher attack.