India pull off Victory from the Jaws of defeat, Zimbabwe v India 1st ODI- Match Report

India pull off Victory from the Jaws of defeat, Zimbabwe v India 1st ODI- Match Report: The first match of the three match ODI series between Zimbabwe and India at Harare embarked some resilient efforts from the Zimbabwean side. Put into bat first, the Indian batting line up looked in a spot of bother right at the start of the innings, courtesy some brilliant and tight pace bowling from the Zimbabweans. The ball was not coming onto the bat in the initial overs and the Zimbabweans in the likes of Panyangara, Chibhabha and Vitori fully utilized it to their advantage.

Out of the many choices, the skipper, Rahane and Murali Vijay opened the innings for India. It was a rather slow and quite displeasing start for the Men in Blue as Murali Vijay had to walk back to the pavilion right in the fourth over of the match at the score of just 1 run off 14 deliveries. Ambati Rayudu walked at the crease next and there emerged quite a decent partnership.

Scoring was not easy as the ball paused a bit after pitching and that made things tougher for the batsmen and thus there was a slight lag in the scoring rate. Things got worse for India in the 18^th over when Rahane tried to cut a ball which had an extra amount of bounce and he was undone as he edged the ball and it was eventually caught by Masakadza.

Manoj Tiwary came in next and he looked uncomfortable with the awkwardness of the pitch right from the first ball he faced. After a few close calls, Manoj was finally dismissed LBW from a good length delivery from Chibhabha and the Indian middle order started to collapse in a whirl. Manoj’s wicket was followed by quite an insensitive run out of Robin Uthappa. Uthappa called for a run after defending a ball and it was collected well and struck onto the stumps well by Raza. He was soon followed by Kedar Jadhav, who was playing his second ODI of his international career. India were reduced to 87/5 in the 25^th over and were deep down into trouble.

Rayudu was the silent mover from one end while wickets kept falling from the other. However, after all-rounder Stuart Binny joined him, the pressure seemed to ease off as he managed to strike a number of boundaries by glancing down the track. Rayudu completed his half century in the process and both the players were progressing swiftly and India still had the hope of scoring big due to their last recognized batting pair.

With a tinge of aggression, coupled with swift running between the wickets, the sixth wicket stand contributed a total of 160 runs on the board when Binny after playing a glamorous knock of 77 runs off 76 deliveries, was finally dismissed after he edged one towards the end of the innings. India were 247/6 then in the 49^th over. Rayudu smashed a glorifying century during the process and it happened to be his 2^nd international century. He remained unbeaten at the score of 124 runs off 133 deliveries with 12 fours and 1 six and India finished things off with 255/6 at the end of 50 overs.

The target seemed to be defendable but the Indian bowlers had a decent job at hand. Bhuvaneshwar Kumar and Dhawal Kulkarni started off the proceedings for India. They needed to restrict the Zimbabwean batsmen and strike early blows. Vusi Sibanda and Chamu Chibhabha started things for Zimbabwe and similar to the Indian batting, it was rather a slow start by the Zimbabwean pair. Things started to tilt to India’s favour in the 5^th over of the innings when Chibhabha edged a ball and was well held by Rahane in the second slip.

Then came in a decent partnership from Masakadza and Sibanda. But Sibanda had to walk back to the pavilion in the 13^th over when he had a miss-hit. The Zimbabwean skipper, Elton Chigumbura walked to the crease and this led to the advent of yet another partnership between Chigumbura and Masakadza. However, Masakadza undone by Axar Patel’s turn and bounce which cost him his wicket. And Sean Williams was bowled by Patel immediately next. Zimbabwe was down at 94/4 in the 25^th over.

Sikandar Raza came in next and assisted Chigumbura well in the partnership. Raza adopted the ploy of sticking to the aggressive mode and tried to push the pressure back on the Indian side. However, he was dismissed at the score of 37 runs from 33 deliveries by Harbhajan Singh. Soon after that, the Zimbabwean wicket keeper Richmond Mutumbami was dismissed and Zimbabwe were reeling at 160/6. Things looked out of the order for the Zimbabweans just when a glamorous partnership between Chigumbura and Cremer crept in. Both of them kept the score board ticking and were well in pace with the required run rate.

Things worsened for India in the 48^th over when 14 runs were conceded by Bhuvaneshwar Kumar. Zimbabwe required 18 runs off 12 runs. In the second last over, both of them were going on incredibly well. However, in the last delivery of the 49^th over, Cremer did play a foolish shot when he tried to reverse sweep an over pitched delivery from Kulkarni. And with that, Zimbabwe lost the grip in the match.

However, there were still hopes upon the skipper as he was unbeaten on a century. Bhuvaneshwar Kumar came into bowl the last over with 10 runs to defend. Despite conceding a few full tosses, the Zimbabwean batting pair seemed to be gulped by the pressure and eventually India had the last laugh when they clinched victory by 4 runs. Chigumbura remained unbeaten at the score of 104 runs and failed to strike a six off the last delivery.

India lead the series 1-0 and the second ODI will be played on Sunday.

Brief Scores:

India – 255/6 (Rayudu 124*, Binny 77, Chibhabha 2/25) win by 4 runs.

Zimbabwe – 251/7 (Chigumbura 104*, Raza 37, Axar Patel 2/41)