Visakhapatnam: On a clement Vizag night, Shivam Dube underlined his growing comfort against pace bowling during his 23-ball 65 blitz against New Zealand, and the India all-rounder attributed the upgrade to an improved “mindset” that made him a “smarter” cricketer.
Of course, Dube’s 29-run barrage against leg-spinner Ish Sodhi will hog the limelight, but equally important were the three sixes he fetched against pacers Jacob Duffy and Matt Henry.
It was a clear statement that he can no longer be kept quiet by simply bringing in a pacer, and many oppositions will be squirming in the planning room with that new angle in Dube’s batting.
Especially when that first-ball six clocked 101 metres and came against the left-arm spin of opposition captain Mitchell Santner.
Instead, Santner turned to Glenn Phillips, a part-time offspinner, hoping he would spin the ball away from Dube’s arc on a Vizag pitch that was offering some grip.
That moment, taken in its entirety, spoke volumes about how far Dube’s game has evolved. To the point where oppositions no longer see him as a batter who can simply be barraged with pace and kept quiet. There are more layers to his batting now, even to him as an all-rounder, which has made him a crucial part of India’s T20I line-up.
It hasn’t happened overnight. There were precedents to this evolution. His 27 off 16 in the 2024 T20 World Cup final. His 33 off 22 in the Asia Cup final a few months later, where he also found himself taking the new ball in Hardik Pandya’s injury absence. Both big nights, tense situations, when the game has a way of testing the best.
But this run-chase in Vizag, agreed without the high stakes, asked for something else.
India, already 3-0 up in the five-match series, chose to make a night of it. Ishan Kishan’s niggle was used to stretch the batting, bringing in Arshdeep Singh and leaving India with six batters. Rinku Singh was pushed up to No.4, part of a broader attempt to see how players respond to unfamiliar roles ahead of a World Cup. Earlier, all the overs were bowled by India’s five frontline bowlers, with no fallback overs for the all-rounders, even though India had two of them in the side.
“We purposely played six batters today,” Suryakumar Yadav said later. “We wanted to have five perfect bowlers and wanted to challenge ourselves. For example, if we’re chasing 200 or 180 and we’re two down or three down, how does it look?”
The night offered that answer soon enough. By the time Dube walked out, India’s experiment had fully taken shape. Abhishek Sharma had fallen first ball. There was no Kishan to maximise the powerplay. Sanju Samson was still finding his way back, and Suryakumar had perished to a reflex return catch. To add to it all, the dew never arrived as India had expected. The pitch, as a result, slowed down, offered more turn, and made timing the big hits harder.
It also clarified what was being asked of Dube. With India short on batting and the conditions offering little margin, there was no secondary role to lean on. For an all-rounder, that matters. This was a blank canvas and whatever India were to make of the chase would have to come off his bat alone.
When Dube arrived, India’s win probability sat at two percent. By the time a freak run-out at the bowler’s end ended his stay, it had climbed to nine. India never truly seized control and went on to suffer their second-heaviest home defeat, but the chase only looked alive when Dube was at the crease. The only sustained resistance came from one place.
He had arrived as early as the ninth over, with the asking rate climbing steadily. When he reached his half-century, a 15-ball effort that became India’s third-fastest in T20Is, the worm briefly overlapped New Zealand’s. It was the only time it did.
