Strong teams from all over the world play series against smaller teams to test their bench strength. Similarly, the Indian team also had sent young players to play a three-match series in this year’s Zimbabwe tour by resting some big players. Team India eventually won the series 3-0 and young Shubman Gill was the hero for India. He looks set to have a bright future.
There have been many Indian players who went on to become very successful in international cricket after their debut in Zimbabwe, including KL Rahul who captained India in the series. KL Rahul scored a brilliant century on his ODI debut against Zimbabwe in 2016, after which he became a regular member of the Indian ODI setup.
There have also been some players in the Indian team who got the opportunity to debut against Zimbabwe, but those players have currently faded away. Today in this article, we take a look at 4 players who made their debut in Zimbabwe but faded away.
Faiz Fazal
Maharashtra-born left-hand batsman Faiz Fazal made his first and only international appearance in 2016 against Zimbabwe. Debuting in the last ODI of the three-match series, Faiz scored an unbeaten 55 off 61 balls. After this match, he was not selected in the ODI team as well as in any other format for India.
Mandeep Singh
Mandeep Singh, who played domestic cricket for Punjab, also made his T20 debut in the 2016 tour of Zimbabwe. Mandeep Singh played all three matches of that series in which he scored 87 runs at an average of 43.50 and also scored an unbeaten half-century. But, despite that, he was not given a long run and eventually faded away.
Pankaj Singh
Pankaj Singh, a right-arm fast bowler from Rajasthan, has played a total of three matches for India. During this he played two Tests and one ODI match. He made his ODI debut in the 2010 tri-series of the tour of Zimbabwe against Sri Lanka in Harare, where he did not take a wicket. After that he never got a chance to play in ODIs. And then also vanished from the Indian team totally.
Naman Ojha
Naman Ojha, one of the most talented wicket-keeper batsmen in Indian domestic cricket, also made his ODI and T20I debut on the tour of Zimbabwe in 2010. He scored 1 run in his only ODI match against Sri Lanka in the tri-series. After that he never got a chance to play for India in ODIs again and then faded away completely.
