The Indian cricket team started their tour of Zimbabwe with the first T20I encounter in Harare on Saturday. With the senior players coming back from the T20 World Cup 2024 triumph, the selectors decided to send a relatively young team under the captaincy of Shubman Gill. While India clinched their second T20 World Cup title after defeating South Africa in the final, the jersey for the T20I series against Zimbabwe has only one star on it. The stars on a team’s jersey denotes the number of times they have won the T20 World Cup and India have achieved the mammoth feat on two occasions – 2007 and 2024.
The reason behind the one star lies in the timing of the events. The Indian cricket team players departed for Zimbabwe before the T20 World Cup final and as a result, they are sporting jerseys which were designed before their departure. The jersey with two stars was unveiled by Sanju Samson after the Indian cricket team stars came back to India from Barbados after a considerable delay.
That is why, the old jersey does not have two stars but it can be expected that the jerseys which will be used from the next series onwards will have two stars on the logo to denote the two victories.
Meanwhile, India skipper Shubman Gill won the toss and opted to field against Zimbabwe.
“We will field first. I think it looks like a good surface. It won’t change much later. It has been long coming. We won an ICC event after 11 years. You always have some expectations from yourself. We have three debutants. Sharma, Jurel, and Parag make their debuts,” Gill said at the toss.
India (Playing XI): Shubman Gill (c), Abhishek Sharma, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Riyan Parag, Rinku Singh, Dhruv Jurel (w), Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Avesh Khan, Mukesh Kumar, Khaleel Ahmed
Zimbabwe (Playing XI): Tadiwanashe Marumani, Innocent Kaia, Brian Bennett, Sikandar Raza(c), Dion Myers, Johnathan Campbell, Clive Madande(w), Wessly Madhevere, Luke Jongwe, Blessing Muzarabani, Tendai Chatara.
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