INDIA completed a three-nil whitewash in their one-day-international (ODI) cricket series against Zimbabwe in ruthless fashion with an 83-run win at Harare Sports Club yesterday.
BY KEVIN MAPASURE
While the tourists were effective in everything they did, Zimbabwe were their own enemies, especially with the bat where Chamu Chibhabha fought a lone battle.
The manner of yesterday’s defeat, against a depleted Indian side, might have been as dispiriting as it was disappointing and with the T-20 matches coming up the team has its work cut out to please its demanding fans.
Having narrowly lost the first ODI by four runs, the team failed to reproduce such a performance in the final two matches surrendering with no fight at all.
Injuries have not helped matters either with the selectors unable to select injured key players, Tinashe Panyangara, Tendai Chatara, Craig Ervine and Sean Williams. But still that cannot be an excuse.
Once India had helped themselves to a formidable total of 276, there was little hope Zimbabwe could chase that down and it proved so in the end with the hosts falling 83 runs short of the victory target.
Zimbabwe was bowled out for 193 in 42.4 overs with Stuart Binny taking three wickets while Mohit Sharma (two) Harbhajan Singh (two) and Murali Vijay also shared in.
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For Zimbabwe it was a sad story of Chibhabha watching fellow batsman trooping back to the pavilion one after the other and all of them with nothing to show for their efforts.
First was Hamilton Masakadza who had been promoted to open after Vusi Sibanda had been dropped.
His struggles for runs continued after he was trapped leg before by Mohit Sharma after scoring just seven runs from his 24-ball knock.
If hope had only diminished with the following wicket of Regis Chakabva (27) it must have extinguished when Elton Chigumbura soon followed him to the hut having scored just ten runs.
From then on it was no longer a question about the result in the end, but just by what margin India would win and whether Chibhabha would finally get his century.
Chibhabha will have to wait a bit longer for that as he perished on 82 at the bowling of Binny with Jadhav taking the catch.
Earlier on Chigumbura had won the toss for the third time in this series and once again he inserted India who did not enjoy a good start, but still scored 276 runs in their allotted 50 overs in the end.
At 4-82 in the first 22 overs in India’s innings, Zimbabwe had done well in terms of penetration, but they failed to back that up from then on. The death was particularly disappointing as India were allowed to serve themselves with 51 runs in the last 19 balls.
What could have been a below par score became quite a formidable one. Chigumbura dropped centurion Kedar Jadhav on 41 and he went on to score 105 from 85 balls.
Debutant Manish Pandey managed a half century scoring 71 off 86 balls before Chibhabha combined with Sikandar Raza Butt who completed the catch.
When Neville Madziva followed up on his four wickets in the Sunday match by removing both openers Ajinka Rahane (15) and Murali Vijay (13) early, hopes for a consolation win briefly brightened.
But India soon composed themselves and piled to take the game out of the reach of Zimbabwe’s batting attack.
Masakadza picked a wicket apiece, but there was no such success for Graham Cremer whose five overs came at the expense of 42 runs.
Both teams shift focus to the T-20 series on Friday and Sunday and the hosts will be hoping they can bowl, bat and field better to give themselves a better chance.
All Chigumbura has won so far is the toss and the fans will ask for more than that.
