After all the hypes and speculations surrounding the debut of Shivam Dube, the all-rounder had a relatively low-key on-field performance in the Twenty-20 International (T20I) series between India and Bangladesh.
In an interview with the Indian Express, the Mumbai cricketer admitted that there was some pressure but also praised the team management for ensuring a relaxed environment in the dressing room.
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The 26-year-old all-rounder also accepted that his overall performance in the series was not satisfactory. “I’m happy that we won the series, but I am not satisfied because I feel my performance could have been better. It’s a learning process, every game I have tried to do better from the last,” Dube said.
Though the talks were regarding his explosive batting, whatever little limelight he grabbed through his performance was for his bowling. In the third and the deciding match, Dube returned with an impressive figure of 3/30 which included the scalps of in-form batsmen Mushfiqur Rahim and Mohammad Naim.
Giving an insight of when went in his mind when he was asked to bowl, Dube said, “I backed myself and told myself that I will bowl to my strength. I was thinking if Mohammad Naim comes down the track, I will bowl a yorker. I had the intuition that he will charge.”
Heaping praise on the Indian skipper for the series, Dube said that Rohit Sharma was not happy with the body language of the players when the Bangladeshi batsmen were cruising toward the winning total in the third T20I.
“We had just taken a wicket and Rohit bhai was not happy with our body language. He told us to put more effort on the field and that we could change the game from here. He encouraged us,” he added.
Dube, who has joined the Mumbai team for the ongoing Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy league games, said that in future he would be hoping to contribute more with the bat in national colours.