Team India had it too easy. After a thrilling win in the first T20I, Zimbabwe were expected to display same confidence in the second
but Sikandar Raza’s team struggled. They fired Shubman Gill early, but chaos ensued.
Middle overs were controlled by Abhishek Sharma and Ruturaj Gaikwad, who smashed boundaries for amusement. Sharma took time to settle down, but once he did, he was hard to stop. The youngster scored 100 runs off 47 balls, including seven boundaries and eight maximums. Gaikwad back him and took over once Sharma was fired.
India finished well thanks to Pune-born cricketer’s 77* runs off 47 deliveries. Rinku Singh stole the show. Rinku dominated the second T20I of the series to illustrate his argument. The 26-year-old scored 48* off 22 deliveries to assist the squad score 234 runs.
Also Read: I ask to use Shubman Gill’s bat whenever I need runs: Abhishek Sharma
Zimbabwe struggled in the end. Mukesh Kumar dismissed Innocent Kaia and Brian Bennett, while Avesh Khan dismissed Dion Myers and Sikandar Raza. Zimbabwe fell down by 100 runs and lost the match.
1. Following the footsteps
Abhishek Sharma idolises his coach, Yuvraj Singh. The teenager has been making noise in domestic cricket, but Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shubman Gill, and Yashasvi Jaiswal prevented him from joining the national team. After performing well in IPL 2024, the selectors gave Sharma a shot in Zimbabwe, and he played well. He scored a century in his second international match, demonstrating his skill.
2. Ruins and Rise
Shivam Dube replaced Rinku Singh, a T20 World Cup favourite for India. On his comeback, the swashbuckling batsman failed to begin his tally, drawing criticism, but Rinku responded with 48* runs off 22 balls. He is rising again and may be hard to stop.
Losing skipper Sikandar Raza said:
The world champions will eventually play like world champions. Dropping catches today certainly hurt us today. I expected 200 on this wicket today but they got 30 runs more. Coming into this game, I thought it would be a close game but it wasn’t to be, the top-order didn’t play well. He has grown by leaps and bounds, he is very hungry and his graph will keep going up. It’s a task we have been talking about since a long time, today we came out positive and played our shots.
Winning skipper Shubman Gill said:
Very happy, great to be back on the winning note back again. With the way Abhishek and Rutu batted, it was not easy especially in the powerplay, with the ball moving around. Yesrerday, it was more about not able to handle the pressure, it’s a young side and it was theiir first international exposure. We have got three matches to go. It’s always good to have more options rather than not having options.
POTM Abhishek Sharma said:
I think it was pretty much good performance by me, the defeat we had yesterday we didn’t have it easy for us. I felt today it was my day and I made it count. I feel T20 is about momentum and I took it to the end. Special mention to the coach and team management, I always feel that as a youngster if it’s your day, if you have to express yourself. We were talking after every ball and he said to me that you should take it on. I always believe in my ability, if there’s in my arc and even if it’s the first ball, I will go after it.
India
