Zimbabwe: 1 Sikandar Raza, 2 Richmond Mutumbami (wk), 3 Hamilton Masakadza, 4 Brendan Taylor, 5 Sean Williams, 6 Elton Chigumbura (capt), 7 Luke Jongwe 8 Neville Madziva, 9 John Nyumbu, 10 Prosper Utseya, 11 Brian Vitori
South Africa: 1 Hashim Amla, 2 Quinton de Kock (wk) 3 Faf du Plessis, 4 JP Duminy 5 AB de Villiers (capt), 6 David Miller, 7 Ryan McLaren, 8 Wayne Parnell, 9 Kyle Abbott, 10 Aaron Phangiso, 11 Imran Tahir
Zimbabwe made much-needed changes to the top and bottom of their XI, but did not veer from the statistically favoured option of chasing in Bulawayo, in what was a must-win match for them. On a dry surface that may later take turn, Elton Chigumbura once again chose to bowl, but at least this time, he had Brian Vitori in his arsenal.
Vitori, who was struggling with an ankle niggle, replaced allrounder Shingi Masakadza and was expected to add some threat to a Zimbabwean attack that relied more on discipline than danger, to tie South Africa down.
Although a score of 309, which South Africa made on Sunday, can hardly be called a restriction, the Bulawayo surfaces are said to produce par totals of around 280, so Zimbabwe knew they will be up for a big task in the second innings.
That is maybe why Zimbabwe also replaced Vusi Sibanda with Sikandar Raza, who recovered from a broken thumb. This was the second time in the last month that Sibanda had been dropped, after also being left out of the three ODIs against Afghanistan.
South Africa were unchanged, leaving experimentation to the final ODI, should it be a dead rubber. Their attack was composed of two specialist spinners as well as JP Duminy and three seamers.
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