Afghanistan's first T20 international match was played against Ireland at Colombo (PSS) on Feb 1 2010 when both teams visited Sri Lanka for the Sri Lanka Associates T20 series. Nawroz Mangal was the captain of the Afghanistan cricket team and Ireland fought under the leadership of William Porterfield. The Afghanistan captain decided to bat first after winning the toss.
Karim Sadiq and Shafiqullah stepped out to the middle to open for Afghanistan and Alex Cusack got the new ball in hand to open the bowling attack. Afghani opener Karim Sadiq could not stay longer and was dismissed by Trent Johnston in the second over of the match. Then Mohammad Shahzad came to join Shafiqullah and struck two boundaries but again Trent Johnston did not allow him to settle down and was sent back at the score of 33 in 3.4 overs.
The captain Nawroz Mangal came out to the middle to handle the situation but a fine delivery of Trent Johnston took the wicket of Shafiqullah. Trent Johnston bowled very well and demolished the Afghanistani batting line up. Nawroz Mangal and Raees Ahmadzai in the middle order tried well but the wickets were falling at the regular intervals. Raees Ahmadzai’s 33 runs, Nawroz Mangal’s 27 runs, and Shafiqullah’s 23 runs helped them to reach the score of 121 for 9.
Afghanistan batters struggled throughout their entire innings and set the target of 122 runs for Ireland. Trent Johnston and Andre Botha performed nicely with the ball and collapsed more than half the batsmen of Afghanistan. Johnston took 4 wickets and Botha got 3 wickets in the match. Now Ireland needed 122 runs to win the match within 20 overs.
William Porterfield and Niall O'Brien came out to the middle to chase the target and Shapoor Zadran got the new ball in hand. Both the openers gave a good start and built up a partnership of 52 runs for the first wicket. Afghanistan got its first breakthrough when Dawlat Ahmadzai dismissed Niall O'Brien and broke the partnership. Then Paul Stirling came on the pitch to join William Porterfield and played very carefully as they did not need to take the risk. But Karim Sadiq in the 7.4 overs sent back Ireland’s captain William Porterfield at the score of 70 runs.
Ireland’s batter was playing very smartly and maintained the run rate of almost 10 runs per over. The captain also played a captaincy inning and added crucial 46 runs from 30 balls that helped them to achieve the target in 18.1 overs only with 11 balls remaining. Afghanistan bowlers could not stop the Irish batters and lost their first T20 international match by 5 wickets.
As of Nov 2021, Afghanistan has played 87 T20I and got the victory in 60 matches and lost 26 T20I with 1 match tied.
Afghanistan and Ireland have faced each other in 30 T20 international matches in which Afghanistan won 16 matches and lost 13 with one without any outcome.