'Like before and after Christ, you can divide his career...': Ashwin backs ‘Yuvraj Singh lite’ Dube for T20WC squad

Ashwin feels Shivam Dube should be part of India’s T20 World Cup squad

India head Rahul Dravid did not want to give away the 2024 T20 World Cup plans yet. With the Indian Premier League (IPL) up next, starting at the end of March, the selectors will still have plenty of options to judge and select from. But veteran Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has backed Shivam Dube for a role in the World Cup squad after the all-rounder’s series-winning performance against Afghanistan last week.

Dube, who made his debut for India in 2019, was dropped for the three-match series in South Africa after not making the final XI in any of the five T20Is against Australia in November. However, in India’s final T20I series before the World Cup in June, against Afghanistan at home, Dube was called back and tested as a potential backup option for Hardik Pandya.

Batting at No. 4 for India against Ibrahim Zadran’s men, Dube did precisely what earned him a call-up in the Indian squad after three years. He smashed back-to-back match-winning fifties while also picking two wickets with his right-arm pace-bowling variety as Dube was adjudged as the Player of the Series in India’s 3-0 win.

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Impressed with Dube’s performance in the series, Ashwin, speaking on his YouTube channel, reckoned that the Mumbai-based cricketer would be an ideal batter for India to have in West Indies, where the conditions are similar to that of Chepauk, Chennai Super Kings’ home ground, the IPL franchise for which the 30-year-old plays for.

“Hardik Pandya is a crucial member of this Indian team. However, the emergence of Shivam Dube… Just like how we divide ears into Before Christ and After Christ, we can divide his career into ‘before CSK’ and ‘after CSK’. In West Indies conditions, which are almost CSK conditions, he is a spin-hitting monster,” the off-spinner said.

Ashwin further compared Dube’s batting to India’s two-time World Cup-winning all-rounder Yuvraj Singh for the way he takes on spinners.

“I can proudly call him ‘Yuvraj Singh lite’ package. There are so many factoids about Yuvraj Singh that I could see in his game – the downswing, the height and the reach. I am not saying that he is like Yuvraj Singh, just saying he reminds me a lot of him. The beauty here is that he hits spin straight down the ground,” he added.

Through the two rampaging knocks of fifties that Dube hit in the Afghanistan series, all pundits and veteran cricketers could talk about was Dube’s potential to be part of the T20 World Cup squad, but Ashwin visualised him in the playing XI, batting alongside Suryakumar Yadav and then bowling the slower ones and cutters as well.

“When Suryakumar Yadav is playing at one end, a team might try to suppress him by playing a left-arm spinner. When Shivam Dube is that the other end at this point, this is a great combination to have. The options that he gives to the team are tremendous. He can bowl two overs of his quota too,” Ashwin said. “He has proved that he can bowl cutters and has developed a back-of-the-hand slower delivery as well. It has just added worth in gold going into this World Cup.”

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