Zimbabwe vs Afghanistan, Only Test at Harare, ZIM vs AFG, Oct 20 2025 - Match Result

Ervine and his Zimbabwean players are all smiles as they pose with the trophy for winning this one-off Test match. That's all we have from our live coverage of this game. Sreshth's report should be up soon for you to read. But for now, on behalf of Sreshth and our scorer Chetan, this is Aaditya Narayan signing off. Take care, stay safe, goodbye.

And now, it's time to hear from the Zimbabwe captain Craig Ervine: I'm ecstatic. A lot of credit to the boys for fighting hard throughout the year. It's a nice end to a tough year for Test cricket. Winning the toss was the first piece of the puzzle. The way we started in the first hour wasn't great, but the way the bowlers came back in the second hour, we built some real momentum. Very impressed with the batting. On a wicket that offered a little bit throughout, I thought it was a brilliant effort with the bat from the boys. The guys have learnt a fair bit over the last few months, playing the amount of Test cricket that we did. The bowlers were outstanding. I thought Brad in the first innings obviously picked up five-fer. Richie stepped up in the second innings and picked up a five-fer. Blessing was a bit unfortunate to not have picked up more wickets. It's very special. Earlier on in the year, when we won a Test match in Sylhet, I'd waited 14 years for that win. Now it's nice to come home, to Harare Sports Club, and get the win here."

Ben Curran is the Player of the Match. "Obviously delighted with the personal performance, but to get a win in such a manner, just very thrilled. Coming back from the injury that I had in England, coming straight into a Test match against New Zealand was hard. I was undercooked. It gave me time to make plans, and luckily it worked out well for me. I'll thank our batting coach, I made a few changes, you've got to make the changes if you want to succeed."

Here's the Afghanistan captain Hashmatullah Shahidi: "Yeah, first off all, they played really good cricket. The conditions were supporting the fast bowlers, ball was seaming around. We didn't play good cricket. We wanted to bat first. The first hour, we were 80/1. The collapse after that let us down as a team. I think when we gave back-to-back wickets and didn't recover well. It was because of less experience of playing Test cricket. In Test cricket, the first day is very important, that gives you momentum looking forward. Zia bowled really well. When we played first class cricket, we played in the same team. I felt there he was ready for the Test format. Hopefully, he carries on the same way, and plays long for Afghanistan in the future."

The presentation ceremony will follow in just a bit.

Azweer : "Disappointing performance from Afghanistan." -- Quite the understatement, that.

Sampath chimes in: This is only Zimbabwe's third win by an innings in their Test history. The previous two came against Pakistan in 1995 here at the Harare Sports Club, and against Bangladesh in 2001 at Bulawayo.

What a performance from Zimbabwe. They have been in command right from Day 1, for their first Test win at home since 2013. Brad Evans' five-fer set the tone on that Day 1, as Afghanistan were bowled out for 127. Ben Curran scored a superb century to lead Zimbabwe to 359. And then there was today's Richard Ngarava show. His maiden Test five-fer was a superb display of skillful Test match bowling.

So many positives for Zimbabwe to take from this Test match. For Afghanistan, Ziaur Rahman Sharifi's dream debut spell, where he picked up seven wickets, will be what they take home from this game. Their Test match batting has been found really wanting in this game. That's where they'll have to improve, but for now, they'll move to more familiar environments with the T20 series that begins next week.

Zia-Ur-Rahman Sharifi is the last batter in for Afghanistan, who have down with a bit of a whimper.

Muzarabani is back.

tejas chaturved: "Afghanistan might win many t20s. but the world cricket will not take them seriously unless they start to take test cricket seriously. the likes of azmat, rashid etc can't just play white ball formats" --- I don't see why Rashid or Azmat have to play Test cricket to be considered serious white-ball players, to be honest. The two are separate, and they are allowed to be.

Thanks, Sreshth. The final rites remain here.

Plenty happening. Let's welcome Aaditya once again

Richard Ngarava's tall tale: how a Zimbabwe fast bowler came into his own