Fast bowler Tushar Deshpande of Mumbai and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) received his first international cap on Saturday as India attempted to win the five-match Twenty20 International Series against Zimbabwe in Harare. India chose to bowl first, and Shubman Gill made the fourth accurate call of the series.
The single change made by India from the third game was the replacement of Avesh Khan with Deshpande, who was capped by assistant coach Sairaj Bahutule. Deshpande selection follows an outstanding IPL campaign in which he claimed the most wickets for CSK (17 in 13 games at an economy of 8.83), making him the team’s top wicket-taker.
India didn’t make any additional changes to the starting lineup from three days earlier when they led the five-match series 2-1. As a result, they will still use four openers from positions 1-4 and just four specialist bowlers, requiring Shivam Dube and Abhishek Sharma to contribute with the ball.
Gill intended to take advantage of the new surface’s early morning conditions. He also hoped to be better with the ball in the death overs, an area he thought they have struggled in the series thus far.
The captain of Zimbabwe, Sikandar Raza, stressed the importance of tying the series at 2-2 while discussing the creation of a plan for the 2026 T20 World Cup.
Zimbabwe made one change to the starting XI: Wellington Masakadza was replaced in the XI by all-rounder Faraz Akram, who was born in Saudi Arabia.
India: 1 Shubman Gill (capt), 2 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 3 Abhishek Sharma, 4 Ruturaj Gaikwad, 5 Sanju Samson (wk), 6 Shivam Dube, 7 Rinku Singh, 8 Washington Sundar, 9 Ravi Bishnoi, 10 Tushar Deshpande, 11 Khaleel Ahmed
Zimbabwe: 1 Wessly Madhevere, 2 Tadiwanashe Marumani, 3 Brian Bennett, 4 Sikandar Raza (capt), 5 Dion Myers, 6 Johnathan Campbell, 7 Clive Madande (wk), 8 Faraz Akram, 9 Richard Ngarava, 10 Blessing Muzarabani, 11 Tendai Chatara
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