Pushed into a tight corner, India responded with a thunderous counterpunch.
They muscled their way past the Zimbabwean challenge in the must-win Super Eight game here on Thursday, registering a 72-run win.
After being asked to bat, the Indian batsmen dealt in boundaries to put up a towering total of 256/4 — their highest in T20 World Cups. Zimbabwe lost the chase in the Powerplay, when they managed just 44/0. But the Africans didn’t go down without a fight, with opener Brian Bennett playing a sparkling innings of 97 not out off 57 balls. However, with their next-best score being captain Sikandar Raza’s 31, they never had a chance and finished on 184/6.
Zimbabwe will also regret not opting to bat first and put the Indians under scoreboard pressure.
With South Africa winning the day’s first match, against the West Indies, the equation now is pretty simple for India. They need to beat the Caribbean side at Eden Gardens on Sunday to book a semi-final berth.
It wasn’t a foolproof performance though, with Bennett showing why the Indian bowlers need to be tighter against the big-hitting West Indians.
Sanju Samson and Axar Patel were the two changes in the Indian team, replacing Rinku Singh and Washington Sundar.
While Abhishek Sharma opted to be watchful initially, Sanju, with a pre-determined mindset, was often clearing his front leg, exposing his stumps, to go for the big hits. He
succeeded briefly, before one such swing got him caught at deep midwicket after making 24 off 15 balls.
Abhishek gradually spread his wings in the company of No. 3 batter Ishan Kishan, who was his usual busy self at the crease. The two stitched a 72-run stand, not letting the momentum earned in the Powerplay (80/1) slip.
Once Ishan (38 off 24 balls) and Abhishek (55 off 30 balls) departed, captain Suryakumar Yadav took over, slamming 33 runs off just 13 balls. When Surya was dismissed in the 15th over, the team score was 172/4. It was the perfect set-up for India to go hammer and tongs in the last five overs and they did that with aplomb, plundering 80 runs.
Tilak Varma (44 n.o. off 16 balls) and Hardik Pandya (50 n.o. off 23 balls) simply butchered the Zimbabwean bowling, hitting boundaries at will. Tilak, who sweated it out at practice for two days before the game sharpening his shots, put all that hard work to good use. And Hardik tagged along with his characteristic swag.
Over to the Eden now.
