Atal’s birthday 143 breaks a 16-year Afghanistan record, and Ireland’s series is gone

Sediqullah Atal spent his 25th birthday hitting 143 at Stormont, and by the time he holed out to long-on, Ireland’s series was gone. Afghanistan made 343 for 9, held Ireland to 301, and won the fourth ODI in Belfast by 42 runs to go 3-0 up with one match left.

A record that had stood for 16 years

Ireland won the toss, bowled first, and had Rahmanullah Gurbaz back in the pavilion inside two overs. That was the last thing that went right for them for a long while. Atal and Ibrahim Zadran put on 231 for the second wicket, the biggest stand Afghanistan have ever managed for that wicket in ODIs. The record it replaced was 16 years old: 218 by Karim Sadiq and Mohammad Shahzad against Scotland.

The two batters went about it differently. Zadran reached fifty off 56 balls and his hundred not much faster, working the strike and picking off the bounce that Byron McDonough and Liam McCarthy were trying to extract. It was his seventh ODI century. Atal took the fight to Gavin Hoey instead, using his feet against the legspinner who had taken four wickets in the previous game. His 143 came off 120 balls with 17 fours and four sixes, only his second ODI hundred, and it won him the match award.

Afghanistan were 257 for 2 at one stage and looked set for something closer to 400. The last 10 overs brought 86, which is a decent finish by most measures and a mild disappointment by the standard the top three had set. Rasooli and Rashid Khan chipped in from there. McDonough finished with 3 for 84, Hoey 2 for 71.

Ireland were never close

Chasing 344 needs urgency from the first over. Ireland managed 25 in eight, with Yamin Ahmadzai and Azmatullah Omarzai swinging it and Paul Stirling repeatedly beaten. Stirling then went lbw to Allah Mohammad Ghazanfar in the 11th over, Cade Carmichael soon after him.

Andy Balbirnie kept going and made 109 off 119, and his 76-run stand with Harry Tector was the only period when the chase looked plausible. Tector’s dismissal at deep backward square ended that. Rashid Khan came back to remove Balbirnie and Ben Calitz off consecutive balls and finished with 3 for 49.

Curtis Campher’s 84 off 46 was the innings of the day for anyone watching for entertainment rather than the result. Eight fours, five sixes, all of it straight through the line, and it dragged Ireland past 300 before he became the ninth man out in the 48th over. Ahmadzai took 4 for 71.

What Afghanistan are actually doing here

Afghanistan had already booked direct entry to the 2027 World Cup before this match, which changes what the rest of this tour is for. On this evidence they are using it to work out how high they can push a first-innings total when nothing is riding on the result. Two hundreds and a record stand suggests the answer is quite high.

Ireland have one match left to take something out of a series in which the only game they have not lost was the one washed out at Bready. On this showing they need their top order to treat a big chase as a chase from the first ball, not from the 25th over.

Stay across the rest of Afghanistan’s tour of Ireland