Even as a whopping amount is being splurged in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia at the Indian Premier League (IPL) mega auction, Pakistan have stunningly lost to Zimbabwe in the first ODI of the three-match series. Chasing a total of 206 runs to win the opener in Bulawayo, the visitors were reduced to 60/6 after 21 overs before rain arrived to never stop. With no floodlights at the venue, the cut-off time was less and well before the inevitable eventually happened.
Pakistan were 80 runs behind on the DLS front due to a lot of wickets lost and some poor batting led them to lose the match. On the other hand, Zimbabwe played admirable cricket especially after being reduced to 125/7 with the bat. On the back of Richard Ngarava's 48-run knock, they posted a fighting total of 205 runs before getting skittled in the 41st over. But the score turned out to be enough with their bowlers stepping up against an inexperienced batting line-up of Pakistan.
The visitors are playing without Babar Azam, and Shaheen Afridi on this Zimbabwe tour and the inexperience in the team was visible on both batting and bowling fronts. With the bat, the openers Saim Ayub and Abdullah Shafique failed to score big as Blessing Muzarabani dismissed both of them for low scores. Kamran Ghulam could only muster 17 runs while the middle-order batters Haseebullah Khan, Irfan Khan and Agha Salman went back to the hut in quick succession.
Mohammad Rizwan made a dogged effort then to hang around in the middle scoring only 19 runs off 43 balls with one four before rain arrived. The duo of Sean Williams and Sikandar Raza picked up two wickets each to leave Pakistan reeling.
Earlier in the game, Zimbabwe got off to a quick start with Joylord Gumbie and Tadiwanashe Marumani adding quick runs up top before the hosts collapsed. Salman Ali Agha was the surprise pick of the bowlers picking up three wickets. At one stage, they were 125/7 before Raza joined hands with Ngarava to notch up a 63-run stand. Faisal Akram, on debut, shined picking up three wickets for Pakistan to finish with 3/24 in eight overs.
Zimbabwe were skittled for 205 runs but the total proved to be enough. Even though rain brought an end to the match, a score of 60/6 meant that the hosts were always dominating the proceedings to take a 1-0 lead in the series.
