An uninspiring young Indian outfit were shocked by Zimbabwe who handed down a six-wicket defeat in the tri-series opener yesterday

Skipper Raina confident erring seamers will make amends

An uninspiring young Indian outfit were shocked by Zimbabwe who handed down a six-wicket defeat in the tri-series opener yesterday.

India set a tough winning target of 286 runs with Rohit Sharma (114) scoring his maiden ODI century and Ravindra Jadeja making run-a-ball 61. The two added 132 runs for the fifth wicket after India were reduced to 128 for four in 30 overs.

Zimbabwe batsmen in a clinical performance chased down the total with 10 balls to spare.

"Unfortunately, we didn't bowl well today. Some of the bowlers were playing for the first time. Hopefully they can learn from our mistakes and move one from here," Raina said adding that he was happy with the way his spinners bowled.

"In the first six overs, we didn't bowl well. (Amit) Mishra and (Ravindra) Jadeja then bowled well and we made a comeback. But they had a powerplay left and couple of their players played well, which cost us the game," Raina explained.

"We need to work on our bowling and fielding department to come back against Sri Lanka. Also, they battled really well. They hung around and had good partnerships," he said.

His Zimbabwe counterpart Elton Chigumbura was beaming after the match and heaped praise on debutant Chris Ervine and Man of the Match Brendon Taylor. "There was a good partnership between BT (Taylor) and Hamilton (Masakadza) which gave us a good start and the foundation for a win. All credit goes to BT for his knock.

Credit goes to Ervine as well and he has to make sure that he gets consistent. He played very well today," he said.

Openers Brendan Taylor (81 off 103 balls) and Hamilton Masakadza (46 off 43 balls) laid a strong foundation for the chase, smashing 88 runs in 13 overs.

Debutant Craig Ervine (67 not out) and Charles Coventry (32 off 25) then held the reins in the middle overs with a 55-run stand for the fourth wicket. Captain Elton Chigumbura struck an unbeaten 16-ball 24 with the help of four fours and together with Ervine guided the team to a resounding victory.
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Taylor, who hit four fours and two sixes, played some good strokes while Masakadza was punishing, hitting five fours and one six in his 43-ball 46.

The inexperienced Indian bowling attack was lacklustre. All the three pacers Ashok Dinda, Vinay Kumar (2-51) and Umesh Yadav were making their ODI debut and failed to impress with the new ball.

Apart from Sharma and Jadeja, the batting, too, was uninspiring. In fact, had it not been for the death over blitz by Jadeja and Sharma, India would have been restricted well below 250.

Why India didn't win

Start and then the stutter
India lost their first wicket, Murali Vijay, when they were 56 after nine overs. But soon that turned to 61 for 3 after 12.3 overs. On a good batting wicket, Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina had to rebuild and that allowed Zimbabwe to keep the runs in check. When Raina was finally dismissed, India were 128 for 4 after 30 overs. This meant reaching around 300 was always going to be difficult.

Inexperienced seam attack
All three seamers, R Vinay Kumar, Ashok Dinda and Umesh Yadav, were making their debut and that did not help India one bit. They all went for runs and none of them completed their quota of overs. Zimbabwe openers Hamilton Masakadza and Brendon Taylor put on 88 before Masakadza fell in the 13th over and that set the platform for the hosts' chase. However, the Indians have gone into this series without any of their senior bowlers and were likely to face this problem.

Where are the wickets?
Spinners Amit Mishra and Ravindra Jadeja bowled well but they could not provide the breakthroughs.
Taking wickets is the best way to keep runs in check and that never happened for India.
Every Zimbabwe player got into double figures and their lowest score was skipper Elton Chigumbura's unbeaten 24.

Ervine comes to the party
Craig Ervine (right) batted as if he has been finishing matches ever since he picked up the bat. The debutant got the boundaries when they were needed and ran hard as well. His 67 came off 60 balls and included five boundaries. He always looked in control and never tried to force the issue unnecessarily.

Umesh Yadav's 46th over
Zimbabwe did well to keep the batting power play option open and it meant that India had to bowl the last five overs of the game with just three fielders outside the 30-yard circle. The hosts needed 42 off 30 and Umesh Yadav's over turned things around for them. The debutant pacer went for 18 in the over and Zimbabwe cantered home after that.

SL ahead for India
BULAWAYO: India will now take on Sri Lanka in the second game of the tri-series tomorrow. Like India, Sri Lanka too have rested their senior players and Suresh Raina and Co will be hoping that will work in their favour. After the loss yesterday, India must win to stay on track and reach the final.
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Zim love India!
It seems Zimbabwe have a thing for India, especially when it comes to chasing . India feature thrice in the list of the African nation's top five successful chases with West Indies and New Zealand being the others. Apart from yesterday's chase, Zimbabwe beat India in December 2000 at Jodhpur by scoring 284 and in March 2002, they chased down 276 with two balls to spare in Faridabad.
Their highest chase came against the West Indies at Chester-le-Street in July 2000 when they scored 290.

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