Chennai, Feb 26 (IANS) Zimbabwe captain Sikandar Raza admitted his bowlers had failed to execute their defensive plans, which led to them suffering a 72-run loss to India in the Super Eights clash at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Thursday. Zimbabwe didn’t have the discipline with the ball as India slammed their way to making 256/4.

“Certainly, I think we could have executed our defensive play slightly better as well. I think we ended up going at them with hammer and tongs, and unfortunately, there was a lot of mixed execution when we were bowling from all the bowlers, and they ended up getting a lot of those runs.

“Once the train gets going at that, it’s hard to bring it back. So I thought, if one thing I would say is, I think we could have executed our defensive plans better. That would have given us a better chance to restrict them to maybe 210, 220, and you never know from there,” said Raza in the post-match presentation ceremony.

India’s batters had feasted on that wayward execution throughout their innings as Abhishek Sharma struck 55 off 30 balls, Hardik Pandya blazed his way to an unbeaten 50 off 23, and Tilak Varma hammered 44 off just 16 deliveries as India posted the second-highest total in T20 World Cup history, laced with a record 17 sixes.

Zimbabwe’s reply, anchored by Brian Bennett’s defiant unbeaten 97, reached 184/6 – creditable in the circumstances, but never threatening to complete the chase. “I’m a guy who looked at a lot of positives. I think for me, the positive from today is that the last game, it was 250, and I felt there was a bit of panic and rush in our batting lineup.

“I always say that you cannot win the game in the first six overs, but you certainly can lose it if you’re chasing a big total. Today, I thought we were a lot more composed in the first six overs. We were trying to give ourselves a chance as well. I thought the way the boys batted compared to the last game is certainly to take a lot of positives and heart from it, and that’s what I’ll do,” added Raza.

Asked about his broader assessment of where his side stood, now that they are out of reckoning for the semi-finals, Raza said, “Yes, batting was there, but I think bowling and fielding, no, I think we could have done better there as well. I think, as I said, the last game sort of taught us how to go on about your business when you’re chasing a big total. So certainly I saw that today. Listen, we are also a work in progress.

“A lot of youngsters, most of them are playing their first World Cup, first time in India for us. Not that I want to use that as an excuse, but certainly the lessons from the last game, from a batting point of view, I thought we took them really well. You can see how quickly these boys are willing to improve, and they showed up today.”

Eliminated from the competition, Zimbabwe will now face South Africa in their final Super Eight fixture at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi on Sunday afternoon with nothing but pride left to play for. Raza said he sees it as an opportunity to finally bring all three departments together in the manner his side managed during the qualifying stages and left no doubt about the standards he would demand from them.

“Certainly, the result will take care of itself, but what I’m looking for is definitely a better performance, fielding, and bowling. Hopefully, we can carry on with our batting performance, and it should just keep getting better. So if we can match those three as we did in the qualifying stages, we give ourselves the best chance to win.

“At the World Cup against the best teams, you need all three departments to be working hard. Unfortunately, if one lacks, then the game runs away from you. So hopefully in the last game, leave everything on the park, and we try and sort out all our three departments, and hopefully that gives us the best chance to win the game.”

–IANS

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