Sterling Rayudu, calm Bhuvaneshwar help India survive scare against Zimbabwe in 1st ODI

First things first. Take a bow, Elton Chigumbara.

It was a brilliant effort by the Zimbabwe captain to take his team within a single shot of victory after Zimbabwe was 160 for 6. The crowd hardly stopped dancing and singing for a good part of his innings. It was a painful defeat in the end, but the spectators – and that ball-boy who couldn’t stopped dancing after collecting a ball from one of Chigumbara’s boundaries – certainly enjoyed the match.

It took Chigumbara 162 innings to get his first ODI century (against Pakistan) but he followed that up with his second in the next game he played. Just like the proverbial London bus, you wait so long for one and then suddenly two come along together. Unfortunately for Chigumbara, both came in losing causes.

If not for Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s excellent last over and Ambati Rayudu’s enterprising 124 not out, India were staring at another humiliating ODI defeat.

With 10 needed off the final over, Bhuvi sent down six full deliveries – yorkers and low full-tosses – that the well-set Chigumbara could not handle, and gave away only five runs. In doing so, he redeemed himself after conceding 14 runs in the 48th over.

Ajinkya Rahane must be wondering how the match went this close though. Without taking anything away from the Zimbabwe captain’s excellent innings, India should have wrapped the game up earlier. Bhuvneshwar was near unplayable in his first spell conceding just 10 runs in his first six overs. Axar Patel and Harbhajan Singh bowled tidy spells in the middle, and picked up regular wickets. But with Zimbabwe needing 83 from the last 10 overs with only four wickets left, India failed to put enough pressure on the batsmen.

It was that familiar foe again – death bowling.

Dhawal Kulkarni struggled to make any impact, bowling short off-cutters and wide full-tosses that were dispatched to the boundary by Chigumbara. The age-old problem of not having a bowler who can bowl the yorker regularly enough came back to haunt India.

What was also disappointing was the lack of aggression shown by Indians on the field. Rahane is no Virat Kohli when it comes to wearing his emotions on his sleeve, but there was a sense that India were just waiting for Zimbabwe to make mistakes. The energy and dynamism that has seen India win so many games in the past was missing.

Earlier in the day, it didn’t look like India would get anywhere close to 250. Having been asked to bat on a lively Harare pitch, India lost Vijay early to a loose shot outside off-stump. Rahane and the eventual man-of-the-match, Rayudu, played a very cautious game, with the 50 coming up in 17 overs. And then a top-order collapse ensued. At 89 for 5, India looked lost. What followed was brilliant display of calculated aggression from Rayudu and Stuart Binny. They took their time initially, but when a bad ball offered it was duly dispatched to the boundary with style and power. Death bowling wasn’t just India’s Achilles heel, it was the home side’s as well with them conceding 90 runs from the last 10 overs.

This was a statement of intent from Rayudu who perhaps will cement his place in the middle-order if he manages a a couple more of good knocks like this.

In the end, it was a nail-biting win for India and they got there because of a few sparkling individual performances. But if they intend to win this series comfortably – which they have to in order to stay second in the ODI rankings – Rahane will be hoping for a better collective effort on Sunday.