There was a flood of runs in the Zimbabwe-Afghanistan first Test at Bulawayo. Hashmatullah Shahidi played a record innings of 1427 runs in the Boxing Day Test. He received the award from the International Cricket Council (ICC) ahead of the second Test of the series starting tomorrow at the same ground.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) has updated the weekly rankings on the first day of the new year. Shahidi has moved up 25 steps to 57th in the Test batsmen's rankings. Another Afghan batsman Rahmat Shah jumped like him. 21 steps ahead, the 52nd batter in the Test ranking is now Rahmat. Rating points of Shahidi and Rahmat are 503 and 533. Both scored double centuries in the first Test at Bulawayo. Shahidi played the highest Test innings of 246 runs among Afghan batsmen in this match. The left-handed batsman is the first batsman of Afghanistan to score two double centuries in Tests.
Three Zimbabwean batsmen Craig Irvine, Brian Bennett and Shaun Williams scored centuries in the first Test of the run-off against Afghanistan at the Queen's Sports Club in Bulawayo. Among them Irvine, Williams improved in the ICC rankings updated today. Williams has moved up 10 steps to 19th in the Test batsmen's rankings. His rating point is 653. Irvin is now the 47th batsman in the Test rankings, five steps ahead. He was the captain of Zimbabwe in the first Test. Afghanistan was led by Shahidi. The second Test of the Zimbabwe-Afghanistan series will start tomorrow at 2 PM Bangladesh time in Bulawayo. They will play these two Tests in the series.
Before the two-match Test series, Zimbabwe-Afghanistan played three ODIs and T20Is each. Afghanistan to win two series. Afghans won the three-match T20 series 2-1. Afghans won the ODI series by 2-0. The first ODI was abandoned due to rain. All six white ball cricket matches have been played in Harare.
