The young debutant Rahmanullah Gurbaz become the first Afghanistan player to score a ton in his ODI debut. Gurbaz played a brilliant knock of 127 runs in 127 balls with 8 boundaries and 9 sixes and announced himself on the international stage in style. Afghanistan beat Ireland by 16 runs, as they scored 289/9 with the help of Gurbaz’s century and Rashid Khan’s half-century.
In response, Ireland only scored 271/9 in their quota of 50 overs where Lorcan Tucker scored 83 runs. Tucker eventually fell in the 48th over, after smashing Naveen ul Haq for three sixes in the death, when he stepped out against Rashid, only to miss the shot and hand Gurbaz his maiden stumping. His dismissal ended all hopes for Ireland to chase down the target and they eventually ended 16 runs short.
Apart from becoming the first Afghan to hit an ODI century on debut, the 19-years old Gurbaz, also broke India’s Navjot Singh Sidhu’s record of hitting the most number of sixes in a debut innings in ODI cricket. Sidhu had previously held the record with 5 sixes against Australia on his debut in the 1987 World Cup. Gurbaz on Thursday went on to hit 9 sixes in his incredible knock.
Despite all this, he also became the first 2000’s born player who scored a ton in international cricket. ICC put up a post appraising the young talent of Afghanistan. He also went on to hit the second-highest score by a debutant in ODI cricket on the day. The highest score on debut is 148 runs by the West Indian batsman Desmond Haynes. He scored it against Australia at St John’s in Antigua in 1978.
A history-making innings for Rahmanullah Gurbaz saw Afghanistan to victory over Ireland in their CWC Super League opener.#AFGvIREhttps://t.co/rpaY9SmaOa
— ICC (@ICC) January 21, 2021
