Andrew Balbirnie asks for more consistency as Ireland lose ODI opener against Afghanistan

McBrine, who finished with figures of 5-29, ripped through the experienced Afghanistan middle-order, dismissing all of Rahmat Shah, Asghar Afghan, Mohammad Nabi and Gulbadin Naib for single figure scores.

Debutant Rahmanullah Gurbaz – who was the player of the series in the three-match T20I series between the two sides in 2020 – eventually brought up his maiden ODI hundred in the 35th over, before accelerating to finish on 127, a knock that came at exactly a run per ball.

Rahmanullah’s effort seemed to inspire the Afghanistan lower-order who rallied after the centurion’s dismissal, to take their side from 198-7 to an imposing final total of 287-9 from their 50 overs with the majority of their late innings run-scoring coming off the blade of Rashid Khan, who blasted a 30-ball 55 from No.9.

With Ireland 88-4, a rebuilding job was required. Curtis Campher and Lorcan Tucker combined to put on 86 for the fifth wicket before the former eventually fell lbw to Mujeeb Ur Rahman for 39.

Tucker kicked on, though. He soon brought up a second career ODI half-century and raced past his previous career-best ODI score of 56; he eventually fell on 83, stumped trying to use his feet against Rashid as the asking rate climbed.

However, it wasn’t quite enough for Ireland as they eventually fell 16 runs short.

Captain Andrew Balbirnie said: “We need to be more consistent – we had a lot of starts there, including myself.

“Their player kicked on and scored a hundred and played really well. That was really the difference between the two sides.

“But some of our guys are still finding their feet at international cricket and can take a lot of positives. To score 270 on the wicket was good – but in the end it wasn’t enough to win the game today.

“We’ve just got to work as hard as we can off the pitch, and go again.

“We’ll probably have a day off tomorrow with the second and third games being so close together. We need to rest, but we also need to keep our skills up – and we’ll aim to collect 10 or 20 points over the next two games.”

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