Rashid Khan bowled 99.2 overs in the Abu Dhabi Test, a long haul that came off the back of some questionable decisions from the Afghanistan camp, writes Rohit Sankar.

When Muttiah Muralitharan slogged through 113.5 overs for a career-best 16-220 at The Oval in 1998, the focus was barely on the number of overs he had bowled; more discussed was the fact that he finished with the fifth-best Test bowling figures in history, a nine-wicket haul in one innings and that he completed 200 Test wickets in 42 Tests, the second quickest for a spinner at the time.

Fast forward to 2021, and Rashid Khan bowling 99.2 overs in the second Afghanistan-Zimbabwe Test is the heated talking point despite his career-best, match-winning figures of 11-104 and a heroic rearguard from the tourists, primarily because of the factors that led to this back-breaking, record-breaking spell. No bowler has got through more work in a single Test in the 21st century.

Rashid arrived in the UAE with a finger injury carried over from the Pakistan Super League, and missed the first Test. But the leg-spinner, who has had a spectacular start to his Test career with four five-wicket hauls in five Tests, was slotted straight back into the XI for the second Test in a bowling line-up that had all of three frontline bowlers.

Another Great leaf in @rashidkhan_19 illustrious book ! The spin star had a record-studded Test match again in Abu Dhabi !#AFGvZIM #AbuDhabiSunShineSeries pic.twitter.com/FZQFNipS09

— Afghanistan Cricket Board (@ACBofficials) March 14, 2021

After scores of 131 and 135 in the first Test, the extra insurance sought in the batting unit was understandable to an extent – although the extra batsman, Shahidullah batted all of three balls in the game – but playing a Test match in Abu Dhabi, where 23 of the 60 innings played there have crossed 100 overs, was asking for trouble.

But what pushed it from merely questionably to straightforwardly ridiculous is that the Afghanistan skipper chose to enforce the follow on after Rashid bowled more than one-third of the 91.3 overs in Zimbabwe’s first innings.

Asghar Afghan, the Afghanistan captain, confirmed that Rashid was still carrying an injury. “Rashid wasn’t totally fit, he was injured,” he said after the game, and the result, as Afghanistan’s bowlers tired on a pitch that held together, was predictable.

A defiant stand from Sean Williams and Donald Tiripano meant that Rashid was not only bowling in back-to-back innings, but churned out a mind-boggling 62.5 overs in the second innings. No one since Muralitharan at The Oval in 1998 had bowled over 100 overs in a Test match. Rashid came to within four balls of the feat.

But what sets Rashid apart from Murali is the amount of bowling the former has had to do before this game and will have to after it. The leggie has been in a bio bubble for quite a while now – he played the Big Bash League immediately after the IPL season last year and went to the Pakistan Super League before flying out to the UAE for this series immediately after – and is marked to play another IPL in less than a month’s time.

Contrast this to Muralitharan’s 1998 Oval Test, the solitary Test in the series. The off-spinner wouldn’t play another game for two months and had played just 22 games in the year – five Tests among them – until August. Rashid is likely to cross that tally by the mid of this IPL in April-May.

The leg-spinner is a precious resource, for both Afghanistan and for world cricket. Workload management in the modern day is a tough task, especially for an in-demand player keen to make the most of all the lucrative opportunities available to him.

Part of the appeal of Test cricket is that it is a game of endurance as well as skill, and there’s an argument that Rashid will be a better bowler for his marathon effort against Zimbabwe. But it’s tempting fate to ask so much of a young bowler. For Afghanistan to make the most of Rashid, they might be best served to ask a little less of him.

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