Harare

India takes on Zimbabwe in the first of the three-match ODI series on Thursday.

This is India’s first tour of the African nation since 2016. In that series, the current captain KL Rahul made his debut under MS Dhoni and had emerged as the leading run-getter in the series.

Six years later he returns after a long injury lay-off and will hope to lead India to a clean-sweep.

India is without many leading players, like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant and Hardik Pandya. This gives an opportunity to the likes of Deepak Chahar, Shubham Gill, Ishan Kishan and Axar Patel to make themselves counted.

Shikhar Dhawan will be Rahul’s deputy in the series.

On the other hand, Zimbabwe are full of confidence and are coming into the series on the back of series victories against Bangladesh in T20Is and ODIs.

The series against India gives them the chance to see where they stand against strong teams in ODI cricket and collect some crucial points for the 2023 ODI World Cup Super League.

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The second and the third ODIs will be played on August 20 and 22.