captain of zimbawi Sikandar Raza He blamed the pitch after his team lost to India in seven games in the first T20I of the three-match series at Harare Sports Club. Raza said that initially, there was too much moisture on the surface, making batting with the new ball difficult, but when India came out to chase, it became much easier. India, aided by Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s record-breaking half-century off 18 balls, easily chased down 126 in 13.2 overs to take a 1-0 lead in the series.Raza felt the pitch favored the team batting second and said Zimbabwe underperformed as the ball took longer to move than expected.“I think, again, it wasn’t up to par. In the morning, I thought the moisture did do its job, but I didn’t think it lasted that long. I think the new ball is still tough,” Raza said after the match.“Unfortunately we didn’t hit a lot of boundaries up front either so the ball was still new and because of that I felt the movement of the board made it more difficult to bat,” he added.Compared to the recent ODI series in Bangladesh, Raza said the wickets have become better batted in India’s innings.“I think in the Bangladesh ODI series, there was a lot of moisture and it stayed there for a long time. Today, I think there was moisture in the first 8 to 10 or even 12 overs, and apart from that, when India batted, the wickets were very real,” he said.
Positive aspects despite failure
Zimbabwe recovered from 32/4 to 125/7 thanks to Wessly Madhevere and Tadiwanashe Marumani. Raza lauded the duo for helping the team achieve a respectable total and hoped that the other batsmen would contribute more in the coming matches.“So, hopefully we can get better wickets in the next game so that even if we lose the toss, it won’t matter too much,” he added.“Yes, of course. That’s one of the positives. Malumani and Madwere, that’s a new role as well. I thought they batted really well and got us some decent totals. We’ll take that as a positive and hopefully others can chip in so that if we bat first, we can put up a competitive total,” he said.
