Rahmat Shah’s unbeaten 143 turns 22 for 2 into Afghanistan’s biggest ODI chase

Afghanistan were 22 for 2 inside six overs at Stormont on Saturday, chasing 299 on a used pitch, with Liam McCarthy having removed both openers and the required rate already climbing. They got home with seven balls in hand. The 302 for 4 they finished on is the biggest total Afghanistan have chased down in a one-day international, past the 283 they ran down against Pakistan in Chennai at the 2023 World Cup.

Rahmat Shah was there at the start of the wreckage and there at the end of the repair job. The captain finished unbeaten on 143 from 133 balls with 13 fours and two sixes, his highest score in the format and his sixth ODI hundred. It was his first since January 2021, and his third against Ireland.

The 201 that changed the arithmetic

Rahmat and Sediqullah Atal came together with the innings in pieces and left it 201 runs later, a stand that is now Afghanistan’s best for the third wicket. It went past the 184 Rahmat put on with Hashmatullah Shahidi against the same opponents in Abu Dhabi in 2021.

They did not start quickly. Afghanistan were 49 for 2 in the 15th over and needed close to seven and a half runs an over, and the pair spent that phase refusing to take the bait. The release came when legspinner Gavin Hoey was introduced. Rahmat pulled his first ball, a half-tracker, over midwicket for six, Atal collected a boundary later in the same over, and from there the gap between the two run rates began to close rather than widen.

The 201 came in 210 balls, which tells you how little of it was slogging. Ireland lost three wickets while making 148 in the equivalent middle phase of their own innings. Afghanistan lost none. Paul Stirling shuffled his bowlers without Mark Adair, who missed the game with an injury, and none of the six he used found a way through.

It took a full-length dive from Cade Carmichael at deep midwicket in the 41st over to end it, Atal picking out the fielder off McCarthy while going for the pull. He was two short of a hundred, and two short of back-to-back hundreds. Azmatullah Omarzai was promoted with 76 still needed and hit 24 off 14, including a six and a four in the first two balls of a Jai Moondra over that effectively settled it. Rahmat closed the match himself, a boundary off the penultimate ball of the 49th, and a section of the Afghanistan support came over the rope to meet him.

Campher’s 96 gave Ireland something to bowl at

For a long stretch it did not look as if Ireland would have anything to defend. Rahmat put them in under cloud on a cold Belfast morning and Omarzai bowled Andy Balbirnie and Stirling in the space of four balls in the seventh over. AM Ghazanfar, handed the lead spinner’s job with Rashid Khan not playing, trapped Carmichael in front and then had Lorcan Tucker hole out to midwicket. Ireland were 99 for 4 in the 19th.

Harry Tector dug in for 53 from 80 balls and added 55 with Curtis Campher, and then Campher took over. He needed 61 balls for his first fifty and 23 for the rest of his innings, finishing on 96 from 84 with seven fours and four sixes. Ireland scored 101 in the last 10 overs. Campher put on 72 with George Dockrell, back in the side and worth 31 off 35, and 64 with Jordan Neill, who finished 23 not out. Ireland closed on 298 for 7. McCarthy’s 3 for 47 was the best return of the day for either side.

Four out of four in Rahmat’s first series as captain

The series finished 4-0. The opening ODI was washed out and Afghanistan won everything that was played, which is a hard set of numbers to argue with even allowing for Ireland’s injuries. Rashid Khan took the player-of-the-series award with 50 runs and 12 wickets, and he was not even on the field for the game that closed it out.

The interesting part is who did the work. Rahmat is 33 and has spent most of a decade as the accumulator in a side better known for its strokemakers and its wristspin. He took the captaincy from Hashmatullah Shahidi in late July, and in his first ODI series in charge he has turned the hardest chase in his country’s record into a controlled afternoon. Ireland go into the 2027 World Cup Qualifier having been outplayed for a fortnight. Campher’s last 10 overs were as good as anything they produced in it.

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