Suresh Raina Won The Toss Against The Other First-Time Captain

On his captaincy debut, Suresh Raina won the toss against the other first-time captain, Elton Chigumbura, and chose to bat on what looked like a batting beauty. Given a 9am start, there might have been a case for bowling first and use whatever moisture might be available, but India chose to put runs on the board.

With a largely inexperienced squad to choose from, India went without Naman Ojha, Pragyan Ojha, R Ashwin and Pankaj Singh. Ironically, they went with a similar composition as the World Twenty20, in that they had in the XI two bits-and-pieces players, Yusuf Pathan and Ravindra Jadeja. Not that they could be blamed: the selectors gave them only six specialist batsmen, that too only while considering both Dinesh Karthik and Naman Ojha as specialist batsmen.

While the batting line-up had few surprises, India handed out debuts to the fast-bowling trio of Umesh Yadav, Vinay Kumar and Ashok Dinda.

Zimbabwe's tournament didn't get off to a great start: they had to go in without Tatenda Taibu, who was out with an injured ankle. Craig Ervine was handed an ODI debut in his absence, and Brendan Taylor was to keep wicket.

India 1 M Vijay, 2 Dinesh Karthik, 3 Suresh Raina (capt), 4 Virat Kohli, 5 Rohit Sharma, 6 Yusuf Pathan, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 R Vinay Kumar, 9 Amit Mishra, 10 Ashok Dinda, 11 Umesh Yadav.

Zimbabwe 1 Hamilton Masakadza, 2 Charles Coventry, 3 Brendan Taylor (wk), 4 Andy Blignaut, 5 Elton Chigumbura (capt), 6 Craig Ervine, 7 Greg Lamb, 8 Graeme Cremer, 9 Prosper Utseya, 10 Chris Mpofu, 11 Ray Price.