It was a sad day for the Indian cricket team on May 19, as it lost to Zimbabwe by a margin of just three runs. A heart-pounding, heart-in-the-mouth match.

The match see-sawed but in the end the Indian batsmen, chasing a target of 253 runs, did not keep their nerves, and were bowled out by an average bowling attack of Zimbabwe. The Indians got out to poor strokes and not due to good bowling. Azhar flashed outside off, Ganguly pulled to the fielder, Ramesh threw away his wicket, the story was the same.

Captain Azhar won the toss and put Zimbabwe in to bat. The Flower brothers, Grant and Andy, were the mainstay of the Zimbabwean batting. At one stage they seemed set to reach 270 runs plus, but some restrictive bowling by Anil Kumble kept them to 252 for 9.

India gave a half century of extras, mostly wides and no balls. That was an atrocious show.

That also meant that the Indians went beyond the stipulated time and were penalised by having to make the required runs in just 46 overs.

Sadagopan Ramesh was the star for India, contributing 55 runs. 43 from Jadeja also steadied the innings. 28 from Mongia in quick time and some lusty blows from Srinath put India in the reckoning. Then the Zimbabwe bowlers also rained wides and no balls.

In the crunch moment, India was cruising to victory, but the batsmen threw their wickets away.

India is not yet out of the world cup, having lost its first two league matches -- against South Africa and Zimbabwe.

The fact that Sri Lanka has also lost its match against South Africa today by a huge margin is some hope for India. This means that with three wins, if India wins its remaining league encounters against Kenya, Sri Lanka and England, it might still reach the super six.

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