The career of Shivam Dube has taken a huge turn for good since joining CSK in IPL 2022. Before that, he had a troublesome time at RCB and Rajasthan Royals from 2019 to 2021.
MS Dhoni and Stephen Fleming identified Shivam Dube’s strengths against spinners and made him their designated middle-overs spin-basher. Dube doesn’t have a fixed number in the batting order; what he has is a fixed role at CSK: to go in the middle overs and attack the spinners all the time.
This has brought him great success. His strike rate of 162 against spin since 2022 is the best among Indian batters since IPL 2022 and the third-best overall after Klaasen (192) and Glenn Maxwell (176). Since IPL 2022, Dube has clobbered 57 sixes in the IPL, joint with Russell and Livingstone, and only Jos Buttler (59 sixes) has hit more.
Shivam Dube never really broke free in the RCB changing room: AB de Viliers
So what was troubling him at RCB? AB de Villiers reckons Shivam Dube didn’t “feel comfortable” at RCB, but he continued to work hard and ask questions to seniors. AB de Villiers opined that Dube didn’t have enough freedom at RCB as much as he has at CSK.
“It’s fantastic to see Shivam like this. He never really broke free in the RCB changing room. He was quite a shy guy, worked really hard, and asked a lot of questions back in the day. I think he did a bit of learning there but never felt comfortable,” de Villiers said on Jio Cinema.
“He talks about being free in CSK, and that is the magic recipe that MSD, Gaikwad, Stephen Fleming, and all the guys from the past have set up over there. It’s a workhorse of a franchise that just makes it work every time, every single season, with new players who feel free to express themselves,” de Villiers asserted.
Apart from being an elite spin-hitter, in his latest innings, Dube showed that he’s worked on his pace-hitting game as well when he pulled Spencer Johnson and Mohit Sharma for big hits on the legside. In two innings so far, the left-hander has scored 85 runs at a strike rate of 166. Earlier this year, he made a strong comeback to India’s T20I team by hitting two half-centuries against Afghanistan.
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