Zimbabwe’s captain Brendan Taylor was again in his elements against India in Auckland on Saturday. While playing his last match for his team, captain Taylor cracked his second World Cup hundred to help Zimbabwe to put up 287.
This was also Taylor’s eighth overall hundred in his career. Earlier, India won the toss and the pacers were again at it. Within 11th over of the match, the India pacer bowlers reduced Zimbabwe to a score of 33 for 3. But Taylor had other plan.
He played very convincingly and shared some important partnerships with the lower-middle order batsmen. Before he got out in the 42nd over, Taylor by then had stroked 15 four and five sixes off 110 balls to make a spectacular 138.
The Eden Park pitch had some juice for the quick bowlers and the India pacers made full use of the conditions.
Surprisingly, Mohd Shami conceded the maximum runs among the three pacers, but they all took wickets. Starting from Umesh Yadav, Mohit Sharma to Shami, all of them got three wickets apiece. Thanks to their performances, India took ten wickets for the sixth time in row.
In total, the Indian bowling unit right now has sixty wickets from six World Cup matches. To everyones’ disappointments, the Indian spinners were not upto the mark.
They went for runs and were hit in every direction of the ground. R Ashwin who took a return catch to claim his only wicket. But he was the most expensive bowler today. Left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja too gave away 71 runs from his 10 overs.
