SIKANDAR Raza and Richard Ngarava returned to the national fold in style with sublime bat and bowl performances, but their efforts fell just short of giving Zimbabwe a winning start as they lost to South Africa by five wickets with 25 balls remaining in the T20I series opener at Harare Sports Club yesterday.
Both stars had missed the two-Test match series against South Africa in Bulawayo - Raza due to global club commitments and Ngarava through injury.
Raza felt there were a lot of positives to take from the game.
"I think the good thing is that we have ticked a lot of boxes today. Our powerplay bowling has been good. Our seamers that came outside the powerplay were brilliant," he told journalists.
"Our finishing, the last 5 overs, was great. Over number 11 to 20, I think we ended up scoring 100 for what, two? So that is good. So I feel that over number seven to 10, I think we only managed to go 4 and over, which put us on the back foot, and we had a harder job.
"If we had gone seven and over in those 4 overs as well, then that means we had 50 to 20 more runs, and then 142 becomes 165. And 165 is not a bad total if you are batting first. I know they made it look very easy, but if you take one over out of the game as well, we were neck to neck up until 11 overs anyway.
"So there are a lot of things we have done today. We will sit down and see where we have gone wrong. Sometimes you've got to raise your hand and say the guy came out, he took the game on, and he won over.
"He went ahead of the game, especially when there was only 142 on the board. So a lot of good things we have done today, but I think from over number 7 to 10, we could have done slightly better," he added.
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Yesterday, Raza finished unbeaten on 54 off 38 balls, hitting three boundaries and two sixes, as Zimbabwe posted a decent 141/6 after a sluggish start. Brian Bennett scored 30 off 28 deliveries, while Ryan Burl contributed 29 from 20 balls.
For South Africa, George Linde picked three wickets for 10 runs in three overs, while Nandre Burger, Lungi Ngidi, and Nqabayomzi Peter took a wicket each.
Zimbabwe got off to a perfect start in defence of their total, with Ngarava dismissing South African T20I debutant Lhuan-dre Pretorius off the first ball of the innings. Ngarava went on to claim two more wickets, bowling out Reeza Hendricks (11) and Rubin Hermann (45), in similar fashion. Trevor Gwandu claimed two wickets, dismissing Rassie van der Dussen (16) and Dewald Brevis (41).
Ngarava finished with three wickets for 35 runs from four overs, while Gwandu had two wickets for 15 runs from 3.1 overs.
Despite Zimbabwe's valiant effort, South Africa reached the target with ease, thanks to Corbin Bosch's unbeaten 23 off 15 balls.
South Africa now lead the series and face New Zealand on Wednesday in the second match
