India set up a virtual quarter-final against West Indies on Sunday with a comfortable win against Zimbabwe on a night that Abhishek Sharma scored his maiden World Cup fifty and India made a small tweak in their batting combination to unleash the second-highest total in T20 World Cups, going two past the 254 Zimbabwe conceded in their last match. Six men batted for India, their innings lasted 15 to 30 balls, and their strike rates ranged from 158.33 to 275. In all, they hit 17 sixes, the most for India in a single T20 World Cup innings.
Zimbabwe asked India to bat first expecting help for fast bowlers. Their reading of conditions was accurate, but the execution was much better from the much more experienced India bowlers, who kept them to 33 in five overs, post which there was hardly any way back.
Zimbabwe, now out of the tournament, dropped two costly catches, taking their tally in Super Eight to five in two matches after having missed just one in the whole first round. A defiant unbeaten 97 from Brian Bennett was the only consolation for them.
India finally admitted their cluster of three left-hand batters at the top was giving offspinners a match-up to exploit, that Suryakumar Yadav was not going to be promoted to No. 3, and sacrificed some lower-order hitting of Rinku Singh to bring in Sanju Samson. Zimbabwe were anyway looking to open with their tall fast bowlers, both of whom Samson hit for sixes down the ground off the back foot in the first two overs. He eventually fell for just 24 off 15, but he was part of India's biggest opening stand this tournament: 48 off 3.4 overs.
Abhishek finds flow, others flair
Unlike earlier matches, Abhishek neither charged at the quick bowlers nor gave away his stumps. It took him only three balls to unveil an inside-out drive over extra cover for four. It turned out to be a no-ball as well, and he sent the free hit for a straight four. Abhishek got to 33 off 13 in the powerplay as Zimbabwe refrained from using spin before the field spread out.
As soon as the powerplay ended, Sikandar Raza and Brian Bennett bowled two overs without a boundary to Abhishek and Ishan Kishan. Neither of them panicked, Ishan used power, Abhishek his feet, and both got past the hurdle.
It took only his 26 balls but Abhishek's maiden World Cup fifty was the second-slowest of his 11 scores of 50 or above in T20Is.
Dropped catches hurt Zimbabwe
Had Zimbabwe held on two pretty straightforward chances, Kishan would have been dismissed for 26 off 19 and Suryakumar for eight off four. The duo ended up with 38 off 24 and 33 off 13. The innings was set up beautifully for Hardik Pandya and Tilak Varma to finish off.
The finishing kick
Hardik Pandya and Tilak Varma added an unbeaten 84 off 31 balls, hitting four sixes each, almost racing each other. Hardik was the only one that ended up with a fifty, but he had a headstart of 12 runs when Tilak came out to bat. Tilak was the quicker one, striking cleanly from the first ball, using space both in front of and behind square. Hardik mainly used power to go down the ground, and caught up with and went past Tilak with two sixes off the last two balls of the innings.
Early movement makes it a bridge too far for Zimbabwe
Arshdeep Singh conceded just one boundary in his first two overs, Hardik extracted appreciable seam movement with the new ball, and at 25 for 0 in four overs, Zimbabwe were looking at 14.5 per over to stay alive in the tournament.
Spinners strike
Axar Patel, left out for the last match because of an abundance of left-hand batters, took two balls to get a wicket, that of the left-hand batter Tadiwanashe Marumani. Varun Chakravarthy took to 19 his streak of taking at least one wicket in a T20I with the wicket of Dion Myers.
