It’s hard to find positives in losing by 50 runs in a T20I, but the Indian team won’t be too unhappy about what happened in the fourth T20I in Vizag. Shivam Dube’s 23-ball 65 after a top-order wobble was a reminder to opposition teams of the dynamite batter India will have up its sleeve in the middle order at the T20 World Cup from next month.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SIGN UP NOW!IPL watchers will know that teams are wary of using spin against Chennai Super Kings’ Dube after the 10th over. At CSK, where the gentle giant has been playing since 2022, Dube has flourished in this role.
Shivam Dube Press Conference: On changing mindsets, reading bowlers and dominating the middle innings
Incidentally, Dube made his T20I debut for India before playing for CSK. But in the 13 T20Is he previously played as a middle-order batsman who could mix in medium pace, the left-hander failed to carve his niche. CSK first spotted him during an inconsequential IPL game in Abu Dhabi 2021 when they had already qualified for the top two spots.In this match, Dube played for Rajasthan Royals. Chasing 190, Dube came up with a 42-ball 64 that led to CSK’s defeat. Dube’s talent against spin was identified by MS Dhoni and CSK coach Stephen Fleming and he was picked for Rs 4 crore in the 2022 auctions.
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Still, Dube wasn’t the right choice. Prior to the IPL, five-time champions CSK were based in Surat. During this camp, Dube’s over-boundaries, using his long levers against spin, often beat MS Dhoni’s sixes by 20-30 metres. Some of those sixes even broke window panes on the stadium’s fourth-floor balconies.This show convinced the management of his attacking abilities, but Dube’s tenure at CSK did not get off to an auspicious start. He gave away 25 runs in the 19th match against LSG in Mumbai and became a bit of a villain for the ‘Yellow Army’ fans. But Dhoni stressed that bowling was not the reason why CSK bought Dube and insisted on him purely as a batter. The temperamental-sounding southpaw eventually declared himself with a 46-ball 95 against RCB in Mumbai, beating the likes of Waninda Hasaranga and Glenn Maxwell. Since then, he hasn’t looked back and despite several attempts by other franchises to lure him away from CSK, the team management has stuck with him, making him one of the highest paid employees at Rs 12 crore.While Dube has gone from strength to strength with his exploits against spin, at times his technique against true pace has been a little worrying. The short ball troubled him on the pitch but Dube worked on it. He’s quite effective against the medium pacers these days, as he showed on Wednesday when he took on the likes of Zak Foulkes and Jacob Duffy. During his four-year stint with ČSK, however, one area that has been somewhat neglected is his bowling. Due to the impact player rule, the think tank did not find it necessary to give him enough overs. However, the management of the Indian team wants to use his bowling skills as well, and in the final of the Asia Cup against Pakistan in Dubai last year, he was put in charge of opening the attack in spin-friendly conditions.Dube developed a clever change of pace and the occasional wide yorker. One senses that he is not too far behind Nitish Reddy with the ball, who is being groomed as a back-up medium-pacer all-rounder for Hardik Pandya.
