AFG vs IRE, One-off Test : Ireland finally won their first Test match on March 1 when they defeated Afghanistan by six wickets in Abu Dhabi, ending a streak of seven successive losses. Ireland had a target of 111 runs in the second innings to win and captain Andy Balbirnie scored his first win in eight Tests with an unbeaten 58 runs from 96 balls.

Before this, fast bowler Mark Adair took eight wickets (five wickets for 39 runs and three wickets for 56 runs). Afghanistan's first innings was reduced to 155 runs in 54.5 overs.In respons Ireland scored 263 runs in their first innings. Latter in the 2nd innings Afghanistan scored 218 and gave Ireland target of 111 runs for win. Then on the basis of captain Andy Balbirnie's unbeaten 58 runs, Ireland registered its first win in 8 test matches.


Ireland had played their first Test back in 2018 when they were defeated by Pakistan. Since then Ireland played total 7 Test matches but haven't win any of them until this 8th Test match against Afghanistan. Interestingly, the two teams had last met in a Test in 2019, and it was Afghanistan, who secured their first win in the format, against Ireland.

With their first Test win, Ireland became the team after Australia, England, Pakistan, Afghanistan and West Indies to register their win in the longest format of the game in less than 10 matches. The Irish team achieved its first win in 8 matches in Test cricket.

Team India was left behind in this matter With this win, Ireland has left behind strong teams like India, New Zealand, South Africa, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe in terms of the number of matches played to register their first win in the longest format of the game. All these teams played more matches than Ireland to win a Test match for the first time.

Andrew Balbirnie becomes the Irish player to play most test matches:
In Test cricket, Ireland has got a chance to play very few matches so far, in which the team has played 8 matches and in this they have played only one series of 2 matches. Meanwhile, Irish team captain Andrew Balbirnie has now become the player who has played the most Test matches for his country, breaking the record of Andy McBrien who has played 7 Test matches for Ireland.

The two teams will now play three one-day internationals and three T20 games as part of their multi-format series.