new delhi neville madziva defended eight runs in the last over as zimbabwe recorded one of their most famous victories over a fancied indian side a tworun win in the first t20i of the threematch series at the harare sports club on saturday to take 10 leaddefending 171 zimbabwe forced india to dig deep into their batting resources for the first time since the start of the tour but axar patel struck a few lusty blows late in the chase to keep them on the edge it all boiled down to madziva who did everything right from getting rid of axar to keeping finisher ms dhoni a veteran in such conditions off the strike as india fell short of the target by three runs finishing at 1686 the zimbabwe players broke into wild celebrations after enduring a horrible odi series against the same opponents earlierthe home team kept finding breakthroughs regularly to break threatening indian partnerships before manish pandey and dhoni came together for a 53run association for the fifth wicket pandey played a busy knock of 48 runs his highest t20i score but fell at the wrong time in the 18th over caught off taurai muzarabani the equation was now much stiffer 28 off 16 with dhoni being the only specialist batsman left needing 21 from 12 balls axar launched muzarbani over the longon fence for a six and followed that with a four and another six off donald tiripano in the next now the match was heavily tilted in indias favour zimbabwe captain graeme cremer handed the ball to madziva on strike was dhoni who could only manage a single off the first madviza overpitched his next but axar ended up hitting it straight to substitute fielder wellington masakadza at longoff to be out for 18 seven off four and dhoni had the strike still the big shot evaded and again he mustered just one rishi dhawan making his debut found himself in a tense situation and wilted under pressure missing a wide yorker a repeat of the shot off the next followed but this time umpire gave it as wide finally off the fifth he managed to get his bat on the ball but that too only brought india a run closer to the target which is what they managed off the final delivery as well india didnt have a impressive start to the chase as opener kl rahul was out for a golden duck in his first t20 international ambati rayudu walked in at no 3 and was off the blocks with two quick fours in the same over relieving his side from the early shock debutant mandeep singh chose to be careful early on before mistiming a flick off madziva that evaded a diving taurai muzarabanis grasp which gave him a lifeline at seven he immediately capitalized on the reprieve with two successive fours off the next two deliveries but when it looked the duo had settled in nicely rayudu inexplicably charged