[1]Zimbabwe stunned India by six wickets with 10 balls to spare to give the tri-nation one-day series with Sri Lanka a surprising opening here on Friday.
Zimbabwe showed they wouldn’t just be the amiable hosts for the pair of former World Cup champions, by overhauling India’s impressive 285/5 with the second highest successful chase in their history.
Opener Brendan Taylor put Zimbabwe on course with 81, and Craig Ervine, on debut, helped to finish the chase on 289/4 with 67 not out.
Elton Chigumbura hit the winning runs with his fourth boundary in an unbeaten 24 from 16 balls. He and Ervine shared a match-winning partnership of 58.
Earlier, Rohit Sharma hit 114 for his maiden one-day hundred while Ravindra Jadeja added an unbeaten 61. Sharma’s fluent innings comprised six fours and four sixes off 119 balls. He mainly savaged short-pitched deliveries, in particular opening bowler Chris Mpofu.
The bedrock of India’s innings was a dominant fifth-wicket stand of 61 (61 balls) between Sharma and Jadeja. Sharma fell in the 48th over when he skied a Mpofu delivery for wicketkeeper Taylor to take a difficult high catch. India got off to a flying start aided by wayward bowling from Zimbabwe opening bowler and new captain Chigumbura, who struggled for rhythm in his first two overs.
Taking the new ball with Mpofu, Chigumbura bowled far too short and wide. He went for 26 runs in his second over to eventually concede 36 from the pair.
But Zimbabwe stemmed the run flow with two quick wickets. — AP
Scores: India 285/5 in 50 overs (Rohit Sharma 114, Jadeja 61 not out, Raina 37, Karthik 22; Mpofu 2/63, Utseya 1/46) lost to Zimbabwe 289/4 in 48.2 overs (Taylor 81, Ervine 67 not out, Masakadza 46; Vinay Kumar 2/51, Mishra 1/47)
Links:
[1] http://103.241.136.51/sp05293jpg-353