Tri Nation Series: India vs Zimbabwe

An insipid opening partnership, a feeble attempt by the middle order led India to a second successive defeat in the hands of Zimbabwe in the Tri Nations Series here in Harare. It was the opening stand by the teams which eventually decided the fate of the match. While India could muster only 58 coming in a awfully slow speed off 16 overs, Zimbabwe stole the match with a 128 runs stand in 26.3 overs against an inexperienced bowling attack, and uninspiring captaincy by Suresh Raina.

While India was trudging along at a rate of around 3.5 halfway through their innings, Zimbabwe batted with more aggression to power around 5 runs per over from the start. The match was well within their grasp the moment they started their chase of a paltry 195.

The Indians waited eternally for the loose deliveries, without taking special care on the running between the wickets and rotating the strikes to create pressure on the opposition. Instead they played themselves into a pressure cooker situation from which they were unable to wriggle through.

Raina’s consistent failure with the bat along with the openers meant Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma to shoulder more responsibilities in every match, which proved too much to expect. Sharma and Royal Challenger Kohli popped out without adding much meat to the score. The only grace was Ravindra Jadeja’s 51 which took the Indian score to close to 200. Still it proved a good 60 runs short of the par score on the Harare strip.

The defeat threatens India out of the tournament. They are currently lying third in the points table. A lot will depend on India’s next encounter with Sri Lanka and then the game between the other two teams. India has to win the match against Sri Lanka and then wait for the match between the Lankans and Zimbabwe to have any hopes of making it to the finals. Till then, India can think deep about the deficiencies in the team and how to inject an antidote.

Brief Scores:

India: 194/9 in 50 overs (Ravindra Jadeja 51, Virat Kohli 18)
Zimbabwe: 197/3 in 38.2 overs

Zimbabwe won by 7 wickets