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Harare Bureau
Zimbabwe gave away a golden chance to humiliate world champions India at Harare Sports Club yesterday when they allowed the tourists to rally from a false start and pull off a comfortable 58-run victory in the second One Day International yesterday.The defeat gave India a 2-0 lead in the Celkon ODI series and left the Zimbabweans with mountains to climb ahead of the last three matches.
The hosts are now under pressure to win the third ODI, at the same venue tomorrow, to keep the competition alive before the series move to Bulawayo for the final two matches.
Zimbabwe, who lost the first match by six wickets on Wednesday, won the toss yesterday and captain Brendan Taylor crucially sent the world champions to bat first, hoping to capitalise on the morning conditions.
The decision appeared to pay off earlier on as the home team got off to an encouraging start and restricting the visitors to 65 runs for the loss of four wickets inside the first 17 overs.
The Indians played decently, though, as they later recovered and posted a highly competitive total of 294/7 in their 50 overs.
It was going to be a daunting task for Zimbabwe to reach the target despite a promising start by the top order batsmen earlier on with Vusi Sibanda (55) contributing the highest score.
The Zimbabwean batsmen, who had a better start by far when compared to India, soon switched to their familiar mode and lost wickets in disappointing fashion as they fell short of the chase with 236/9 on the board.
Jaidev Unadkat led the destruction with four wickets in the bag.
Unadkat was involved in the dismissal of Zimbabwe’s the first three batsman – Vusi Sibanda, Raza Butt (20) and captain Brendan Taylor who only faced four deliveries before he succumbed to a pointless easy run out.
But Prosper Utseya weighed in with an unbeaten 52 while Elton Chigumbura (46) missed his half century when he was caught behind by the wicket keeper Karthik off Mahommed Shami in the 49th over.
Earlier in the day, the Indians had started slowly when asked to bat first in the difficult morning conditions at Harare Sports Club before centurion Shikar Dhawan (116) teamed up with Dinesh Karthik (69) to conjure up the win.
The pair helped India push the score to a hefty total, despite the tourists losing a couple of wickets towards the end of their innings.
Dhawan, who was let off the hook three times by poor fielding, survived the early torment suffered by India and notched up a match-winning 167-run partnership for the fifth wicket partnership with Karthik.
India had lost four of their top order batmen cheaply with Rohit Sharma (1), Virat Kohli (14), Ambati Rayadu (5) and Suresh Raina (4) departing before they could settle well enough.
Brian Vitori had a good spell in the morning. Vitori, who returned to the team replacing Tino Mutombodzi made a good start claiming two wickets earlier and help pinning down the Indians’ scoring rate.
The Zimbabwean fast bowler removed Sharma with his first ball when the Indian opener edged to Vusi Sibanda at slips in the second over.
Vitori returned in the 14th over to get Rayadu walking back to the pavilion, caught by Utseya having faced 25 deliveries.
Rayadu had scored a half century on debut in the previous game and yesterday he found the going tough.
However, there was a bit of a drama in the seventh over when Kohli was involved in an argument with the umpire, disputing his dismissal.
The decision did not go down well with the man who had expected more in this game following his match-winning century in the previous match.
Kohli reluctantly walked, which was poor for a captain who should lead by example, as India lost their second wicket early.
They were soon pegged back at 65 runs for the loss of five wickets following the dismissals of Ambati Rayadu (5) and Suresh Raina (38).
India, however, staged a great recovery courtesy of the fifth wicket partnership between Dhawan and Karthik who lifted the side from 65 runs to 232/5.
Zimbabwe got their breakthrough when Karthik was run out by Taylor for 69 runs, having faced 74 deliveries.
Dhawan followed a few moments later when he miscued Prosper Utseya’s delivery onto the stumps.
But India still managed to up their game till the end, forcing 23 runs off the last over by Sean Williams with lower order batsman Vinay Kumar slogging a commendable 27 off 12 balls.
Vitori, who appeared to have suffered a finger injury during the match, finished with two wickets, conceding 27 runs from eight overs while Jarvis (1-70) and Prosper Utseya (1-67) toiled without much success.
Online Reporter