Couldn't believe we were getting that close: Timycen Maruma

On Saturday, it was Neville Madziva. On Wednesday (June 22), it could've been Timycen Maruma. Zimbabwe nearly found a new hero as they came agonisingly close to sealing a historic series win over India, but it wasn't to be. There have been very few opportunities in the last 13 days for the hosts to take heart and positives away from a fixture. The last game of the series was one such occasion.
When Maruma walked out to bat, the momentum had started to slip away from Zimbabwe. Dhawal Kulkarni had just broken a key partnership by dismissing Malcolm Waller, leaving the hosts with 35 to get off 17 deliveries with a senior batsman in Elton Chigumbura for company. A superb over from Kulkarni meant Zimbabwe were being squeezed out of the competition; they needed 32 off 12 with Bumrah bowling the penultimate over.
"At first, I couldn't believe it that we're going to get that close," Maruma said, in the post-match press conference. Just as the game was slipping away, Maruma stood tall and tonked Bumrah, one of the most effective bowlers on tour, for a big, brutal six over midwicket. The equation was down to 21 off 6 balls, still a tough one, given Barinder Sran was about to bowl the final over, having conceded just 14 runs in his first three overs.
"One of the senior guys, Elton, was pushing me - you can do it, you can do it. That's when I got the belief in myself. The moment I hit that six, I got the belief that we can do it."
'That six' came off the first ball of Sran's over that threw the left-arm pacer off-guard. The pressure swung India's way again. Suddenly, there was an air of confidence about Maruma's demeanour at the wicket, while Sran needed a teammate to put an arm around his shoulder and calm him down on the walk back to the top of his run-up.
The nerves hardly settled; Sran bowled a wide and followed it up with an attempted back-of-the-hand slower ball that became a waist-high full-toss and got dispatched for a four. The crowd went berserk. It almost felt like ages since they were crying out for a fight. Here, they were on the verge of getting a sensational series victory. Maruma had single-handedly brought the equation down from 21 off 6 to 9 off 4. Sran was on nearly on the verge of sabotaging a lot of effort he had put in in the last fortnight and leaving Zimbabwe with a blot on his performance chart.
Sran took his time but recovered. He delivered a perfect wide yorker in the free-hit delivery, which Maruma swung and missed. Another similar yorker followed and Maruma failed to connect. There was a third yorker-length ball that Maruma managed to dig out and collect a single, but that perhaps, wasn't enough.
"Unfortunately, the two balls that I missed, that's where we lost the game. Otherwise, it was a good challenge," Maruma summed up.
With eight to get from two, Chigumbura managed a boundary as the penultimate delivery flew off the outside edge to the third man fence but couldn't dispatch the final ball away. Chigumbura's failure left Zimbabwe finish second-best in the match and hence the series, but he had a few words of praise for the young Maruma.
"It's disappointing to lose the game that close, (but) I thought the guys showed good fight today. It's always hard to get 20 runs in the last over but I thought Timycen showed good courage," Chigumbura said.