Craig Ervine made 206 not out at 41, and Zimbabwe are the first team to pass 500 in both innings of a Test
Zimbabwe made 504 and 523 for 5 in Sharjah, and a double hundred from their oldest centurion closed out a record-heavy draw with Afghanistan.
Nov 10, 2026
Craig Ervine resumed on 20 on the fifth morning in Sharjah, with Zimbabwe 164 for 3 and nothing left to play for except time. He walked off in the evening on 206 not out, with Wessly Madhevere unbeaten on 100 beside him and Zimbabwe 523 for 5. The first Test against Afghanistan had been a certain draw since the morning. The records kept coming anyway.
Zimbabwe made 504 in their first innings and 523 for 5 in their second. No team had ever passed 500 in both innings of a Test before. Afghanistan’s 514 in between made this the first Test with three 500-plus totals.
Ervine at 41
Ervine was 41 years and 78 days old when the match began. Only Eric Rowan and Jack Hobbs have made Test double hundreds at a greater age. He faced 279 balls and swept the spinners from well outside off stump for most of the day. He and Madhevere added an unbroken 208 for the sixth wicket, a Zimbabwe Test record for that wicket, and Madhevere’s hundred was his first in Tests.
Andy Flower’s 232 not out against India in Nagpur in 2000 had been the last Test double hundred by a Zimbabwean. Ervine is the fifth man to make one for them, and 206 not out is their third-highest individual Test score. He is also now the oldest Zimbabwean to make a Test hundred.
That record changed hands twice in four days. Brendan Taylor had taken it with 131 in the first innings, and he followed it with 82 off 88 balls in the second before he was run out. Taylor was 40 years and 272 days old when the match began, and he was named player of the match. Only Graham Gooch has won that award in a men’s Test at an older age.
Bennett’s first Test in charge
Brian Bennett, captaining Zimbabwe in a Test for the first time, made 128 in the first innings and 58 in the second. Taylor, Bennett and Madhevere each finished the match with a hundred and a fifty, and only one other side has had three batters do that in the same Test: Pakistan, against New Zealand in Karachi in 1976.
Afghanistan had answered the first-innings 504 with a hundred apiece from Sediqullah Atal (105), Rahmanullah (113 on Test debut) and their captain Rahmat Shah, who batted 347 balls for 173. Atal and Rahmanullah put on 206 for the second wicket. Newman Nyamhuri took 5 for 82 to finish the innings, and Afghanistan’s lead was ten.
There were seven individual hundreds in the match. Left-arm spinner Zia-ur-Rehman bowled 96 overs for four wickets and conceded 343 runs, the third-most by any bowler in a Test.
A pitch with nothing in it
The surface gave the bowlers nothing for five days. Rahmat spent the last two sessions on his part-timers to keep his main bowlers fresh, and he never took the second new ball even though the old one had worn smooth. Afghanistan used eight bowlers in Zimbabwe’s second innings, opener Sediqullah Atal among them. I can’t blame him. With a second Test four days away, there was no sense in grinding his seamers into a pitch that wasn’t going to give them a thing.
For Zimbabwe, it was a rare good week against Afghanistan. They had lost to them twice in the ODI tri-series in October, including the final in Sharjah, and then lost all three T20Is.
The second and final Test is at the same ground from 13 November, starting at 11:30am IST. If the curators prepare another pitch like this one, expect the bowlers to suffer again.