India 103 for 0 (Mandeep 52*, Rahul 47*) beat Zimbabwe 99 for 9 (Sran 4-10, Bumrah 3-11) by 10 wickets
Visiting India rallied back to thrash Zimbabwe by 10 wickets to level the three-match cricket series ahead of the final match tomorrow at the Harare Sports club.
KEVIN MAPASURE/cricinfo
Zimbabwe went into the match with their tails up and targeting a rare series win, but they found India in brutal mood executing their routines with ruthless efficiency to make a bold statement ahead of tomorrow’s decider.
Openers Lokesh Rahul (47) and Mandeep Singh (52) had the easy task of guiding their team home after Zimbabwe had posted a modest 99-9 and they only needed 13.1 overs to reach their winning target.
They encountered little trouble to coast along although Zimbabwe had a couple of dropped catches, yet it never looked like India would fail to win this match once they had laid the platform with a good bowling display.
It was Zimbabwe captain Graeme Cremer who won the toss and decided to bat first but the home side never got going and it was mostly down to good bowling by the visitors.
Each time they looked like building something India always had a way to destroy it taking wickets regularly to restrict their hosts to an easy winning target.
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Jasprit Brumah and Barinder Sran destroyed Zimbabwe’s innings sharing in 7 wickets between them with the later claiming four of those.
Chamu Chibhabha, who scored ten runs, was the first to go falling victim to a combination of Sran and Ambati Rayudu, who took the catch to give the tourists the start they had desired.
With only 12 runs having been added fellow opener Hamilton Masakadza (10) soon followed when he was clean bowled by Sran to leave Zimbabwe at 26-2 after 4.2 overs.
Zimbabwe’s slump continued unabated with Sikandar Raza Butt facing just two balls for his single run before he returned to the pavilion to leave Zimbabwe’s innings ailing and in desperate need for a proper partnership.
It got worse when Tino Mutombodzi was trapped by Sran for a duck before Malcolm Waller (14) and Peter Moor, who ended on 31 shared a 29-run wicket collaboration which gave the local fans a bit of hope considering Elton Chigumbura, hero in the previous match, had not yet entered the fray at that point.
There is always hope when Chigumbura’s wicket is still intact, but the Indians would have done their homework on him after the first match destruction where he scored a half century, and so it proved when he was beaten clean by a Brumah delivery.
When he was dismissed all Zimbabwe revised their ambition to batting through the overs while also trying to get to triple figures and they failed to achieve the later.
Brumah made sure the tail was not given room to wag too much taking the wicket of Neville Madziva whose furniture he dismantled for a single run.
Donald Tiripano and Taurai Muzarabani guided Zimbabwe to complete their allotted overs and somehow it felt like an achievement just to bat 20 overs considering the way how the Indians bowlers had dominated the local batsmen.
With the series tied ahead of the final match tomorrow, Zimbabwe will be looking to go back and recharge their batteries and give it their best to try and steal a series win and atone for their ODI failures.
