Sanju shines with bat; India beats Zimbabwe by five wickets, clinches ODI series

HARARE: Top knocks from Sanju Samson, Shubman Gill and Shikhar Dhawan coupled with excellent bowling from Team India crushed Zimbabwe by five wickets in the second ODI of three-match series here at Harare on Saturday. With this victory, India has a 2-0 lead in the series and have captured it with one match to go.

The day was not memorable for Zimbabwe as they failed as a batting unit miserably. Though Luke Jongwe gave Team India a small scare during their chase with two quick wickets, the hosts do not have a lot of positives to walk away with. In reply, India achieved the target with the loss of five wickets in 25.4 overs thanks to the excellent batting performance of Sanju.

Sanju is India's top scorer with 43 runs off 39 balls. He was adjudged the Man of the Match award for his performance with the bat and behind the wicket. It was the 56-run partnership of Sanju and Deepak Hooda for the fifth wicket that helped India, who were struggling at 97/4 at one point.

Sean Williams (42) and Ryan Burl (41*) were the only ones who could put up decent contributions for the hosts as Indian bowlers, especially Shardul Thakur (3/38) feasted on the batters and did not allow any big partnership to prosper.