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A solid knock from Hardik Pandya has set up India’s clinical 72-run victory against Zimbabwe in the T20 World Cup 2026 clash played at the MA Chidambaram Stadium.

With this win, India keeps their qualification chances for the semi-finals alive in the global event. Currently, they are behind South Africa and the West Indies in Group 01 of the Super 8 stages in the T20 World Cup 2026 points table.

After invited to bat first, Sanju Samson and Abhishek Sharma opened the innings while Richard Ngarava opened the bowling attack.

Despite a solid start from Samson, he could not convert the hits into big scores as Muzarabani sent the opener for 24 runs.

With Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan at the crease, India went on to score 80 runs in the power play.

Kishan has been in touch with bat as he scored 38 runs off 24 deliveries, while Abhishek Sharma went on to smash his fifty after back-to-back disappointments in the ongoing T20 World Cup campaign.

Abhishek got dismissed by Muzarabani for 24 runs while Suryakumar Yadav, who came to bat, continued their slaughter, scoring 33 runs off 13 deliveries before being dismissed by Richard Ngarava.

Hardik Pandya and Tilak Varma have been in fine form as they intend to complete the innings on top.

Hardik Pandya scored 50* runs off 23 deliveries while Tilak Varma remained unbeaten with 44 runs off 16 deliveries as India scored 256 runs in their 20-over innings.

Chasing a mammoth 257 run target, Brian Bennett and Tadiwanashe Marumani opened the innings while Arshdeep Singh opened the bowling attack.

The opener duo made a decent start, scoring 44 runs in the powerplay. With the dismissal of Marumai for 20 runs and Dion Myers for 6 runs, Sikandar Raza and Bennett forged a partnership.

Meanwhile, Bennett went on to smash his fifty while Raza got dismissed for 31 runs and Ryan Burl got dismissed for a duck.

Tony Munyonga added 11 runs before being dismissed by Arshdeep Singh on an lbw. With Dube bagging the wicket of Musekiwa, Zimbabwe were down to the last four wickets.

By the end of 20 overs, Zimbabwe scored 184 runs, where Brian Bennet remained unbeaten with 97* runs.

Arshdeep Singh picked three wickets, while Varun Chakravarthy, Axar Patel and Shivam Dube bagged 1 wicket each.

Hardik Pandya was named player of the match. Speaking at the post-match presentation, Pretty happy. I mean, yeah, it sounds strange 23-ball 50, but I think I had to reassess the situation as well. What I meant by that, I felt I was trying to hit too hard.”

“And just in the game, I realised, I think I can time the ball and hit sixes as well. So I think for me, it was a good game to continue the rhythm because I feel a couple of games I had which I could not do what I wanted to do,” added Hardik Pandya.