Zimbabwe pulled off a surprising surprise, winning the first Twenty20 International by 13 runs against a youthful, talented Indian squad. This was India’s first Twenty20I loss in 2024 and their first versus Zimbabwe in eight years. Tendai Chatara and captain Sikandar Raza spearheaded Zimbabwe’s bowling attack that held India to 102 runs. Shubman Gill gave it his all, and the bowlers did a great job, but India was unable to overcome Zimbabwe’s total of 115 runs.
Chasing 116 runs at Harare against Zimbabwe, India lost all its wickets at 102 and lost by 13 runs in the first T20I of the 5-match series on 6 July. 102 is India’s lowest all out total in T20Is in the last eight years.
For India, Shubman Gill scored 31 runs and Washington Sundar scored 27 runs. Apart from this, no other batter could score more.
While for Zimbabwe, Sikandar Raza and Tendai Chatara took three wickets. Also, Brian Bennett, Wellington Masakadza, Blessing Muzarabani and Luke Jongwe picked one wicket each.
Earlier, Zimbabwe had scored 115 runs after losing 9 wickets. Brian Bennett (22), Dion Myers (23), Clive Madande (29) and Madhevere (21) scored some good runs for the team.
For India, Ravi Bishnoi took 4 wickets, Washington Sundar picked 2 wickets, while Mukesh Kumar and Avesh Khan took one wicket each.
A young side, India, will take on Zimbabwe in the first match of the Sports 5 T20I series at the Harare Sports Club on Saturday. Notably, this will be the first time the Men in Blue have played in Zimbabwe since 2016.
The Zimbabwe series has gained fresh significance following the T20 World Cup success and the retirements of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Ravindra Jadeja from T20 cricket. The Men in Blue will be hoping to maintain their winning streak now that they have new players. Zimbabwe, on the other hand, enters this series after losing their previous series 4-1 to Bangladesh in May. Meanwhile, Sikandar Raza’s team failed to qualify for the T20 World Cup.
