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Zimbabwe all-rounder Ryan Burl confirmed that skipper Sikandar Raza is fit and available for selection ahead of their crucial Super Eight clash against India in the ICC Men's T20 World Cup on Thursday.
Raza had suffered a heavy blow while bowling in Zimbabwe's previous outing against the West Indies, which raised concerns over his availability for the high-stakes encounter. However, Burl dismissed any doubts about the all-rounder's participation with a light-hearted remark during the pre-match press conference. "Sikandar Raza is 100% playing. Good luck telling him that he's not going to play against India. Yeah, he's going to be playing," Burl said during the pre-match conference. Ahead of the India clash, Raza is just 15 runs away from becoming the first Zimbabwe cricketer to reach the landmark of 3000 runs in T20I cricket. Currently, the all-rounder has smashed 2985 runs in 131 matches and 126 innings. Raza has an average of 26.18 and has hammered 16 half-centuries and one century in the shortest format. Overall, Raza could become the 14th cricketer to score 3000 or more runs in T20I cricket after Babar Azam, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jos Buttler, Paul Stirling, Martin Guptill, Mohammad Rizwan, Muhammad Waseem, David Warner, Suryakumar Yadav, Virandeep Singh, Aaron Finch and Quinton de Kock. Zimbabwe had earlier scripted a memorable win in the group match against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka, showcasing their ability to perform in challenging away conditions. Asked what lessons could be drawn from that experience about silencing a home crowd like India's, Burl chose his words carefully. "It will be quite dangerous to answer how I am going to silence India in India. But ultimately how we approach tomorrow's game is going to be no different to how we've approached the games before in the sense that we have our processes, we've got our game plan, yes it does change here and there according to the conditions and your opponents but ultimately we want to play the game that we know how to play and we have found a lot of success doing it that way. So we would obviously want to focus on as much as what our strengths are but taking into account the challenges that the opposition does present," Burl said. Zimbabwe suffered a thrashing loss in their opening Super Eight fixture against the West Indies. Zimbabwe lost the one-sided fixture at the Wankhede by 107 while chasing a monstrous target of 255. (ANI)
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