zimbabwe cricket team
ZIM vs IRE 1st T20I: The first match of the three-match T20 series was played between Zimbabwe and Ireland at Harare Sports Club. In this match, the team’s star all-rounder and captain Sikandar Raza once again performed brilliantly and played an important role in helping his team win against Ireland. They won this match in a thrilling manner on the last ball by just one wicket. With this victory, Zimbabwe team has gone 1-0 ahead in the T20 series.
Sikandar Raza did wonders
Sikandar Raza gave an all-round performance to win this match against Ireland. First of all it started with winning the toss. As captain, Raza performed his responsibilities very well in this match and his decision to bowl after winning the toss was in the interest of the team. He bowled brilliantly in the first innings of the match, Raza also took three important wickets during this period, after such performance of Sikandar Raza, half the work became easy for Zimbabwe. Raza took three wickets by dismissing Andy Balbirnie, Harry Tector and Curtis Camper and took a total of 4 wickets for 28 runs in his quota of four overs.
Amazing work of bowlers
Apart from this, fast bowlers Blessing Muzarabani and Richard Ngarava kept the pressure on the Irish team throughout the innings by taking two wickets each. A late knock from Gareth Delany (26* off 11 balls) helped the Paul Stirling-led Ireland team post 147 runs for the loss of eight wickets in 20 overs.
The run chase was not easy for Zimbabwe also during the second innings of the match. Ireland’s Barry McCarthy and Josh Little were also performing brilliantly with their bowling. He allowed Zimbabwe to score only 53 runs in 9 overs. Apart from this, he also took three wickets. However, Raza once again did wonders for his team and won the match. The 37-year-old batting all-rounder picked the right kind of balls to bounce and rotated the strike well to take Zimbabwe closer to the finishing line. He scored a half-century with the help of five fours and two sixes at a strike rate of 154.76. Raza scored 65 runs in 42 balls in this match.
thrill of the last over
Zimbabwe needed 12 runs to win with 10 balls remaining when Raza lost his wicket and the game took an interesting turn. With nine runs to win from the last six balls and two wickets in hand, Ireland had pinned their hopes on McCarthy to complete the job, but their hopes were dashed as Zimbabwe bowled out the ball in the last over of the match. Scored 9 runs with one wicket remaining. This was also a special moment for Zimbabwe cricket. Actually his team was playing a day-night match at home for the first time.
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