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Brandon Moyo
WORLD T20 champions India arrived in Harare yesterday for their five match T20I series against the Chevrons.
Most of the players who won the World Cup will not be available for the series.
The team will be captained by highly-rated batter Shubman Gil.
Meanwhile, former Zimbabwe captain Andy Flower has heaped praise on India’s T20 World Cup winning skipper Rohit Sharma.
Flower was impressed with the way Sharma used his bowlers in the last five overs as India scripted a brilliant comeback to complete an invincible campaign .
India, who play a five match T20I series here, found themselves on the back foot with five overs to go in their defence of 176 runs.
Heinrich Klaasen was going rampant with the bat for the Proteas.
Sharma’s decision to bring back Bumrah was what impressed the Chevrons great.
“I think he (Sharma) kept his nerve, I think he was saving up his premier bowler for two of the last five and the proof of the pudding was in the eating this time.
“Bumrah came to the party just as his captain needed him to.
“Klaasen was genuinely outstanding, the class and pedigree of his shots, he really deserved to take them home but Hardik got him, and you have to give a lot of credit to Hardik as well for bowling that slower ball, it bounced just a little to find that outside edge,” said Flower.
After Bumrah bowled the 16th over, Pandya got the 17th before the former came back for the 18th, his last over of the match.
In that over, he managed to pick up the wicket of the Proteas’ Marco Jansen.
Arshdeep Singh was given the penultimate over by their skipper with South Africa needing 20 runs off the final two overs and the fast bowler only went for four runs, leaving 16 to get in the final over.
“And then Bumrah could come back with his last over, that 18th over, the captain gave him that crucial over and left two overs, one for Arshdeep and one for Hardik at the end.
“After what he was hoping for, that rate climbed again, a very fascinating game of cat and mouse that Rohit was playing with the South African batting team,” said Flower.
Online Reporter