Elton Chigumbura is in prime batting form, leading Zimbabwe from the front. After notching up his maiden ODI century in Pakistan recently, he followed it up with another ton, in the first ODI against India. However, like the first one, this too came in a losing cause as Zimbabwe buckled under the scorecard pressure in a tantalizingly tight game. "I was delighted scoring my second hundred," said Chigumbura. "I think it's my second or third time batting at No. 4 - most of my career I've been batting at number seven. It's a good challenge which I've enjoyed so hopefully I get more big scores like that. But the team comes first - it's always disappointing to lose the game. As an individual I'm happy with the performance that I did, but the main thing is the team. Being on the losing side is always disappointing." The Zimbabwe captain was the lone fighter in their chase of India’s 255. He came in to bat in the 13th over after the loss of two early wickets and stayed put till the end. However, there wasn’t much support from the other end as the middle-order crumbled. "I thought the way we kept losing wickets, we didn't get the momentum we needed because we had to keep rebuilding,” Chigumbura rued. “We kept on trying to build a partnership but up to the end when I ended up batting with the specialist bowlers instead of a batsman, that's probably where we lost the game. We didn't have specialist batsmen out there in the last 10 overs." With 10 runs needed in the final over, Chigumbura had Donald Tiripano for company. They managed four runs off the first three balls after which Chigumbura had no choice but to keep the strike and look for a big hit. However, Bhuvneshwar Kumar ensured with his mean accuracy that the Zimbabwe captain couldn’t get him away.

"I wanted to keep the strike as much as possible but I thought he bowled well in that last over so it was hard," said Chigumbura. "I was just waiting for the one that he was going to miss and make sure I executed well, but I didn't get any. It was disappointing after fighting so hard. When you come so close and you don't get over the line, it's very disappointing."