India clinched the final game against Zimbabwe in Harare with a comfortable 42-run victory, winning the five-match T20I series by a commanding 4-1 margin. Zimbabwe could muster a mere 125 in a chase of 168.
Mukesh Kumar, Shivam Dube, Washington Sundar, Tushar Deshpande and Abhishek Sharma all plucked wickets at regular intervals to ensure Zimbabwe weren’t really in the hunt. Dion Myres, the No.4 batter, was the only Zimbabwean who looked in decent touch and ended up with a 32-ball 34.
Faraz Akram and Tadiwanashe Marumani also reached double figures, but they couldn’t convert their starts into scores of substance. Mukesh, who took four wickets in the match, provided the finishing touches to the cynical effort by removing the last man, Richard Ngarava, and returned with impressive figures of 4 for 22.
Earlier, Sanju Samson used all his experience to guide India to a good score in conditions that had something for the bowlers. Dube also played his part by batting aggressively at the back-end of India’s innings and made a quick-fire 12-ball 26.
The salient feature of Dube’s innings was the way he took on Ngarava, one of Zimbabwe’s better bowlers, smacking him for two boundaries and a six in the penultimate over. Meanwhile, Samson blended singles and twos with sumptuous lofts. He also judged the length nicely on a deck that was two-paced.
For Zimbabwe, Blessing Muzarabani and Richard Ngarava, the tall pace-duo, along with Sikandar Raza, took three wickets between them, to leave India in a spot of bother at 40 for 3 after five overs. Just that Samson and Dube put paid to the home team’s hopes by playing with composure.