Kevin O'Brien joins a rare club

Kevin O'Brien became the first Test centurion for Ireland and the fourth batsman to get a hundred in his team's Test debut, even as he anchored a rearguard action against Pakistan at Malahide. Charles Bannerman of Australia, Dave Houghton of Zimbabwe and Animul Islam of Bangladesh are the other batsmen who got hundreds in their country's first Test match. Click here for a list, by Steven Lynch, of batsmen to make the first century for their respective teams in Test matches.

O'Brien was the top scorer for Ireland in their first innings too: he made 40 runs out of Ireland's total of 130. At the end of the fourth day of the Test match, O'Brien's aggregate for the match of 158 runs is currently the third-highest by a batsman in his team's debut Test match. Bannerman' 169 runs for Australia against England and Houghton's 162 runs against India are currently still above O'Brien.

Following-on after conceding a first-innings lead of 180 runs, Ireland have batted out 122 overs in their second innings. This is the most overs played out by any team when batting for the second time in their first Test. Sri Lanka's second innings in their debut Test match against England lasted 83.5 overs, which was the previous longest second innings by a team in its first Test. Overall, Ireland's is the third-longest by a team playing its first Test match. Zimbabwe batted out 214.2 overs against India in their first innings at the Harare Sport Club in 1992-93 and Bangladesh's first innings against in their inaugural Test in Dhaka lasted 141.3 overs.

Ireland's fightback in this Test match was largely made possible by a 114-run stand for the seventh wicket between O'Brien and Stuart Thompson. This was only the third century partnership by for a team playing its first Test match. A 165-run partnership between Zimbabwe's Houghton and Andy Flower is the only one higher than the O'Brien-Thompson effort. The only other hundred partnership came in the same match between Zimbabwe and India, when openers Grant Flower and Kevin Arnott added 100 runs for Zimbabwe's first wicket. Thompson is only the third batsman to get a fifty in such matches batting at No. 8 or lower, after West Indies' Joe Small and India's Amar Singh*.

*Amar Singh wasn't mentioned at the time of publishing this piece. This has since been corrected