Jun 19, 2016
Brief Scorecard: Zimbabwe 170 for 6 (Chigumbura 54*, Waller 30, Bumrah 2-24) beat India 168 for 6 (Pandey 48, Chibhabha 2-13) by two runs
Coach Makhaya Ntini rejoices with the Zimbabwe players, Zimbabwe v India, 1st T20I, Harare, June 18, 2016 – AP
Jun 19, 2016
Brief Scorecard: Zimbabwe 170 for 6 (Chigumbura 54*, Waller 30, Bumrah 2-24) beat India 168 for 6 (Pandey 48, Chibhabha 2-13) by two runs
Coach Makhaya Ntini rejoices with the Zimbabwe players, Zimbabwe v India, 1st T20I, Harare, June 18, 2016 – AP
HARARE – It was an outstanding last over from Neville Madziva but India have only themselves to blame for a shocking two-run loss against Zimbabwe in the first Twenty20 of the three-match series in Harare on Saturday.
India needed eight runs to win from the last over and MS Dhoni was at the crease but Madziva held his nerves and bowled with brilliant accuracy to give the Graeme Cremer-led side a sensational win against a team who have been in outstanding form in the shortest format in 2016.
It is a historic win considering that Zimbabwe had failed to qualify for the Super 10 of World Twenty20 and had lost T20 series to Afghanistan earlier this year.
Dhoni took a single off the first ball of the last over to give Axar Patel – who was looking good with the bat – the strike but he was caught by Hamilton Masakadza on the very next ball.
Dhoni once again was at the batting end but a spot-on Madziva didn’t let him go for a big hit and he took another single to give newcomer Rishi Dhawan the strike. He already had a bad day with the ball giving away 42 runs in his four overs and now he was under pressure to score six runs off last three balls.
As Dhawan went right across his stumps, Madziva bowled a wide delivery outside the off stump and it was a dot ball. The next delivery was almost similar and Dhawan tried the same shot but it was given as a wide ball by the umpire.
Dhawan took a single off the next delivery, which meant that India needed a boundary off the last ball and ‘Captain Cool’ this time failed to score the winning runs and the ball outside the off stump was played to backward point for a single.
After being completely outplayed in the three ODIs, it was expected that India will have another whitewash against the minnows who are probably going through the worst phase of their cricketing history.
But openers Hamilton Masakadza and Chamu Chibhabha gave the hosts a strong start before Elton Chigumbura’s unbeaten 26-ball 54 took Zimbabwe to 170 for 6 in 20 overs.
Chasing a fighting total, India lost KL Rahul on the first ball of the innings and were struggling against the Zimbabwe bowlers before Manish Pandey’s 48-run knock helped them get back on track. With 79 required off 42 balls, Pandey hit two consecutive sixes off Cremer as 16 runs came off the 14th over.
India were looking on course but they lost Pandey at the wrong time and now they needed 28 off 16 balls. It was a complete team effort from Zimbabwe to hand India an embarrassing defeat but the sense of urgency was missing from the visitors and the Indian skipper. Maybe they took the ‘mediocre bowling attack’ of Zimbabwe a bit too lightly.
Courtesy: News18
