Cricket in Zimbabwe has been a tough journey so far. After getting banned in July last year by ICC, it looked like their end was near. But a support from their sport minister made ICC lift their Ban in October. Since then they’ve been improving little by little.
Touring one of the best teams in the world, they had prepared way ahead. In the opening game of the tour, They showed that they can challenge any team. In the second one, They have outplayed in all departments.Coming to the third and final match, Zimbabwe had nothing to lose, just to play for their pride.
Zimbabwe chose to bat after winning the toss. For a moment, it seemed like they took a bad decision. Muhammad Hussain playing his first match in the series, Knocked over the top order inside the powerplay. Experienced duo of Brendan Taylor and Sean Williams joined together for 4th Wicket. Taylor holed out to hasnain after scoring 56 runs off 68 Balls.
On the other hand, Williams held one end pretty good. He scored his 4th ODI Ton, ended up with 118* not out. He has been well supported by Weshley Madhvare (33 runs) & Sikander Raza (45 runs). Zimbabwe set the target of 279 runs for Pakistan. Muhammad Hasnain picked up his maiden fifer for 26 runs. Others were expensive with the ball.
Chasing a stiff target, Pakistan kept losing wickets. Richard Ngarava & Blessing Muzarabani sent Imam-ul-haq (4 runs) , Fakhar Zaman ( 2 runs) and Haider Ali (13 runs) back to pavilion. Mohammed Rizwan (10 runs) & Iftikhar Ahmed (18 runs) stayed for awhile and perished soon. Babar Azam was running out of partners as wickets kept falling. Swashbuckling batsman Khusdil Shah joined Azam at the crease. They put up a handy partnership of 63 runs for the 6th wicket. Khusdil Shah departed for 33 runs.
Zimbabwe gained the upper hand and had the license to close out the tail. But Wahab Riaz had different idea. He started counter attacking and it payed dividends too. They scored 100 runs in just 15 odd overs. Babar Azam stroked a fine century, his 12th in ODIs. Muzarabani removed Riaz (52 runs) in the 47th over. The equation was simple, needed 28 runs in 18 balls with well set Babar Azam still in crease.
Muzarabani striked twice in the penultimate over as he removed both Shaheen Afridi & Babar Azam (125 Runs). Muzarabani ended up with best figures of 5/49. It all boiled down to the final over. Richard Ngarava had 12 runs to defend. He did pretty well until the 5th ball. A sloppy fielding effort from chisoro off the final delivery let the game into the Super over.
Muzarabani bowled a sensational over by removing Iftikhar & Khusdil Shah in a space of 4 balls. Zimbabwe has to score 3 runs in return. Sikander Raza finished the match with a four. Zimbabwe will be in high spirits before going into T20 Series which starts on November 7.
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