ICC Champions Trophy 2025: Who is Ibrahim Zadran, Afghanistan’s record-setter against England?

Afghanistan opener Ibrahim Zadran stormed into the history book today, with a stellar 177-run knock against England in an ICC Champions Trophy match in Lahore, guiding his team to a competitive 325/7.

Zadran’s swashbuckling century came off 146 balls, with 12 fours and six sixes. It was the highest individual score in the Champions Trophy history. The earlier best of 165 was set by England’s Ben Duckett in the ongoing edition.

He was involved in three key partnerships – 111 runs for the sixth wicket with Mohammed Nabi (40), 103 runs for the fourth wicket with skipper Hashmathullah Shahidi (40), and a 72-run stand with Azmatullah Omarzai (41) for the fifth wicket. With both Afghanistan and England having lost their opening games, this in a must-win Group B clash for them, as the winner will continue to have a chance to enter the semifinals while the losing team will crash out of the tournament.

However, the 23-year-old Zadran displayed amazing composure and courage to pull his team out of trouble in a must-win encounter – Afghanistan were 37 for three inside the Power Play. He began cautiously, rebuilding the Afghanistan innings steadily in the company of Shahidi.

Zadran reached 50 off 65 balls, slowly shifting gears to bring up his sixth ODI century off 106 balls. Once he crossed the milestone, he went into overdrive smashing the English bowlers – Jamie Overton (1/72) and Jofra Archer (3/64) – to all parts of the ground.

He soon raced to 150, for the second time in his career. Such was Afghanistan’s assault in the final 10 overs that England ended up conceding 113 runs.

Zadran has played seven Tests, 34 ODIs and 44 T20Is so far for Afghanistan, and is one of the country’s promising young cricketers. He was part of two U-19 World Cups, where he was the top-scorer for Afghanistan. Zadran, whose average in the 50-over format is 47, played his first ODI in 2019 but played his next only two years later. And boy, what a comeback it was! He made three centuries in five ODIs – his previous best of 162 came against Sri Lanka.

In 2022, Zadran was named the ICC Emerging Cricketer of the Year.

He was instrumental in Afghanistan’s 2-1 ODI series win against Bangladesh. In the now-epic encounter against Australia in the 2023 World Cup, he scored a brilliant 129 only to be completely overshadowed by double-centurion Glenn Maxwell.

Zadran had a fruitful 2024, with half-centuries against Australia in the T20 World Cup, and India and Sri Lanka among other teams.

He is the nephew of Noor Ali Zadran, another Afghanistani opening batter who played 51 ODIs, 23 T20Is and two Tests for the country.