Sikandar Raza is unhappy with the team’s performance after getting defeated by India in the T20Is. India is leading the IND vs ZIM T20I series by 2-1.
Shubman Gill and company came to all guns blazing after getting trashed in the first T20I against Zimbabwe on July 6th, Saturday. In the first T20I, India bundled up for 102, losing to Zimbabwe by 13 runs. It was a bitter loss as the World Champions had their first defeat after winning an ICC trophy. However, India bounced back in the second T20I, scoring a colossal score of 234. In reply to this, Zimbabwe could merely score 134 runs.
Sikandar Raza Unhappy With Zimbabwe’s Performance
Talking of the third T20I, India’s skipper Shubman Gill won the toss and decided to bat first. Shubman Gill played a captain’s innings, scoring 66 off 49 deliveries. Shubman Gill’s score includes seven fours and three maximums. In addition, with the assistance of Ruturaj Gaikwad’s 49 and Yashasvi Jaiswal’s 36, India put up 182 runs on the board.
In reply to the chasing total, Zimbabwe started off slow. Three wickets were down early. However, Dion Myers had impactful innings of 65 runs off 49 balls but couldn’t make a difference to the result. In addition, Clive Madande scored 37 runs off 26 balls but could hardly make any difference. Sikandar Raza tried to accelerate the score scoring three boundaries. However, at the end, Zimbabwe lost to India. As a result, Zimbabwe lost to India by 23 runs.
In the post-match presentation to the defeat, Skipper of Zimbabwe Sikandar Raza was unhappy with the team’s performance. The captain blamed fielding as one of the reasons for being on the losing side. He added that they gave away 20 runs extra while fielding. Sikandar Raza also addressed that it’s time for the players on his team to take up responsibility. Raza also said that it’s okay for new players to make errors, but experienced players must take charge. He also mentioned that there is no way to solve one issue by causing another, that’s why we selected three openers. Sikandar Raza said,
“I think it’s the fielding again, we are proud of our fielding but the wheels came off today, we gave away 20 extra runs and we lost by 23 runs. We still have problems at the top but I have utmost faith in them that they will come good sometime. We have tried 15 different partners (openers) in the last year and a half or so. There is a lot of cricket going on in the country and club cricket has revived.
“It’s time that our players including myself take up the responsibility. The youngsters making mistakes is acceptable but the senior players need to step up. You cannot fix a problem by creating another problem, we have picked 3 openers for a reason. The openers that have been picked up should be given a run”
India will look forward to sealing the series by winning the fourth T20I against Zimbabwe on July 12th. There are two more T20IS left against Zimbabwe to end the series.
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