ZIM vs IRE
Photo Credit: (Twitter)

India vs Zimbabwe Weather Forecast And Pitch Report Of Harare Sports Club, 1st ODI, India Tour Of Zimbabwe 2022. India is set to take on hosts Zimbabwe in the first ODI of the series, on August 18, Thursday. The match is set to take place at the Harare Sports Club and is scheduled to begin at 12:45 pm IST. The 2nd and 3rd ODI will take place on August 20 and 22 respectively. All the matches will take place at Harare Sports Club in  Harare.

The visitors are on a 12-match winning streak against Zimbabwe in ODIs with 11 of them on Zimbabwe soil. India beat England (2-1) and West Indies (3-0) in their most recent ODI series on away soil. Zimbabwe beat Bangladesh in the ODIs (2-1) and T20Is (2-1) at home recently.

Zimbabwe Cricket has been on the back foot during the recent few years, and they are having a good time on the field recently. They won the regional T20 Qualifiers to qualify for the 2022 T20I World Cup and then beat Bangladesh in both the ODI & T20I series recently.

Now, they have a chance to showcase their talent to the wider audiences against the cricketing giants in this series. The hosts have rested most of their senior players owing to workload management and will be eager to test the young players on the bench in this series.

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India vs Zimbabwe
India vs Zimbabwe. (Photo: Twitter)

Zimbabwe will be led by Regis Chakabva in the absence of Craig Ervine in this series too. Takudzwanashe Kaitano and Tadiwanashe Marumani are expected to open the batting line-up.

Sikandar Raza, Innocent Kaia, Regis Chakabva, Ryan Burl, and Wesley Madhevere will form their strong middle order combination with all players except Wesley Madhevere and Ryan Burl making big scores recently.

Luke Jongwe, Donald Tiripano, and Richard Ngarva will form their pace bowling trio in the starting XI this match with the likes of Victor Nyachi and Brad Evans available for selection in the squad. Sikandar Raza will lead the spin attack with Wesley Madhevere and Ryan Burl for the company in the spin attack.

Sikandar Raza. (Photo Source: Getty)
Sikandar Raza. (Photo Source: Getty)

India will be led by returning KL Rahul after a long injury-ridden gap. Experienced campaigner Shikhar Dhawan will serve as his deputy and partner him at the top of the order. Deepak Hooda, Shubman Gill, and Sanju Samson showcased their skills and are expected to slot in the middle order for the team with Axar Patel expected to be the all-rounder lower down the order.

Shikhar Dhawan - KL Rahul
Shikhar Dhawan – KL Rahul Photo Credit: (BCCI)

Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, and Deepak Chahar are expected to slot in as the first-choice pacers in this match with Shardul Thakur and Avesh Khan available as backup options for the team. Axar Patel will partner with Kuldeep Yadav to take care of the spin department.

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Spin all-rounder Shahbaz Ahmed received his maiden India call-up as he replaced an injured Washington Sundar for the three-match ODI series against Zimbabwe. Along with KL Rahul, a lot of focus would also be on Deepak Chahar, who too is returning from an injury.

Shubman Gill might just have to drop down the order to make room for skipper KL Rahul at the top, but he will aim to continue the rich form that earned him a Man of the Series award against West Indies. India has a massively dominant record against Zimbabwe in ODIs.

India vs Zimbabwe Weather Forecast And Pitch Report Of Harare Sports Club, 1st ODI, India Tour Of Zimbabwe 2022

Harare will have bright and sunny weather with no chances of rain or any other weather interruptions in this match. Harare Sports Club will have a new pitch for this match, and some grass cover is expected on it to help the pacers in the first hour which might be tricky for batters. The average scores are expected to be around 280-290 runs in this match.

The captains are expected to chase the total if they win the toss as skippers opted to chase in recent series played here and chasing teams has a 2-1 win-loss ratio too.

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The temperature at Harare on August 18, Thursday will be 28 degrees Celcius during the daytime when the humidity will be also 28%.  The sky will be generally clear and the wind speed will be 9 km/hr from the North direction.