sikandar raza butt

A new-look Indian cricket team slumped to a shocking loss against Zimbabwe in their first T20I encounter in Harare on Saturday. Ravi Bishnoi took four wickets while Washington Sundar took two as Zimbabwe could only manage to score 115/9 in 20 overs. In response, the Indian cricket team batters lost the plot completely as the visitors kept losing wickets at regular intervals and were all out for just 102. India skipper Shubman Gill criticised his side’s fielding after the 13-run loss and also said that after losing five wickets early, he himself should have stayed till the end to finish the match for his side.

“We bowled pretty well, we let ourselves down in the field. We were not up to standard and everyone looked a bit rusty. We spoke about taking time and enjoying our batting but it didn’t pan out that way. Halfway through we had lost 5 wickets, would’ve been best for us if I stayed there till the end, very disappointed with the way I got out and the rest of the match panned out. There was a bit of hope for us but when you’re chasing 115 and your no.10 batter is out there, you know something is wrong,” Gill said.

Zimbabwe captain Sikandar Raza was ecstatic with his team’s display and said that it was not a low-scoring surface and it was the calibre of the bowlers that did not allow the batters to score a lot of runs.

“Feel really happy about the win. Need to take one game at a time. The job is not done, series is not over. World champions play like world champions so we need to be ready for the next game. This isn’t a wicket where you get bowled out for 115. Credit to the bowlers of both sides. Clearly an indication we need to up our skills. I said I don’t care about the result as long as we could be true to the crowd and changing room, we had our plans, we stuck to it and we backed our guys. Our catching and ground fielding was amazing but we did make some errors, shows there’s room for improvement. We knew the fans would lift us up and give us energy, credit to them, it helped us,” Raza said at the post-match presentation.