Failed Shivam Dube experiment a lesson for Indian selectors
If you were a kid in the mid-2000s who lived in the suburbs of a metropolitan city, chances are that you might have been enrolled by your parents in a Karate class or a Guitar class or Swimming class, especially during the summer holidays. I was no exception.
I didn’t live in quite the metropolitan city but living in the suburbs of Coimbatore, my parents enrolled me in a Swimming class during elementary school. It was a 14-day (two-week) course with the end goal being that any and every kid at the end of the second week should be well-versed with swimming. The depth of the pool increased from left to right, meaning it was around four-foot deep on the extreme left and the depth increased gradually and by the time you reach the extreme right, it was a good 12-foot deep. The idea was that the kids, for the first seven days, started off practicing on the left and on the eighth day, they were put on the right, basically on the assumption that seven days of training is enough for them to face the ‘real’ test, the deep waters on the right.
I was not making quite the expected progress and on the seventh day and the instructor lashed out at me, saying, “7 naal aagiyum innum pedal adichitu iruka” (You’re still pedalling (and not swimming properly) after seven days.” Cometh the eighth day, there was no running away. A rule is a rule, and so I was thrown into the extreme right side - the deep part of the pool. They asked every kid to vertically swim in the pool, meaning all the swimming was done in the 12-feet area. And when my turn came, I jumped and swam with perfection for a good 15-20 metres, after which I ran out of breath, panicked, stopped mid-way and started crying for help. Eventually, in fact, in no time, I was rescued, but I realized that I was not ready, and was out of my 'depth'.
When Ross Taylor deposited Shivam Dube over mid-wicket towards the hills at the Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui for the fourth and final six of the over, I could see myself in him: a helpless young kid who was out of his depth at the international level. And just like how I seamlessly swam across the pool for a good 20 metres, international cricket seemed way too easy for Dube at the beginning. Within five times of playing for the country, he’d outrightly won a game with the ball, against Bangladesh in Nagpur, and with the bat, against a formidable Windies side in Thiruvananthapuram. He even had this Zlatan-esque demeanour about him in press conferences, and better, even backed up with his performances on the field.
“I have the capability of clearing any ground. You might have seen today also and that's the capability I have,” he said after his 54 in Trivandrum and, in this day and age where confidence is so easily equated to arrogance, he uttered the words, "They (West Indies) have got a good T20 side but we have prepared very nicely. I think India is the best team in world cricket and we will win the series," even before the series had begun.
His unperturbed nature coupled with his tranquility and borderline-arrogance gave you the feeling that he was moulded for this - to compete at the highest level - and was here to succeed. Failure did not even appear in the same area code as him at any point. And this outlook of his - that he’s here to make a name for himself and not just fill in for Hardik Pandya - soon earned him an ODI cap just 42 days after he’d made his first appearance for the country. The ODI cap, then, was touted to be the first of many mountains he was going to climb in the illustrious career of his and yet, till date, it remains the last and only mountain he’s climbed.
“I have the capability of clearing any ground. You might have seen today also and that's the capability I have”
Shivam Dube
It wasn’t until 21 metres that I started losing control, felt that I was drowning and realized I was out of my depth, but it all happened in the blink of an eye. I stopped abruptly and started crying for help in the middle of the pool. For Dube, however, the downfall has been more gradual and less melodramatic. There hasn't been one particular match where he’s completely looked out of depth. Rather, with every passing game, his inadequacies have become clearer and clearer. The Mount Maunganui horror show perhaps was the moment where the water went above his head.
The warning signs were always there. His ODI debut in Chennai, where he conceded 68 runs under 8 overs, conceding 10 boundaries in 47 balls, was a clear indication that he was not a bowling all-rounder. With a set Hope and Hetmyer at the crease, Dube kept erring on his length - not like his line was any better - and landed every ball in the slot, allowing the Windies duo to feast on it. Post his ODI debut, he would go on to bowl just 9 more overs, the last of which was his almost-Broad impersonation at the Bay Oval.
And with every passing knock with the bat, the myth that he is a batting all-rounder has also been debunked. His batting, in fact, has been worrisome and has made one feel uneasy at the lack of technique, intelligence, and skill his game possesses. The 54 in Thiruvananthapuram, in fact, is, till date, his only score of over 15 in international cricket. On the other side of the knock lies scores of 13, 8*, 3, 12 and 5 and on four of those five occasions, he had more than enough time to express himself.
In fact, throughout the New Zealand series, he batted at #5, ahead of Manish Pandey and his knock in the 3rd T20I in Hamilton made it crystal clear that he in no way, at least for now, belongs at this level. Sent in to bat at #3 ahead of both Kohli and Iyer with the score 89/1 in 9 overs, Dube, on a flat Seddon Park wicket, was tamed, humiliated and toyed around by the duo of Kuggelejin and Bennet.
As he tried to ‘up the ante’, all he could do was aimlessly swish at the ball - particularly attempting the cut over square-leg - for six deliveries, before finally perishing on the seventh. Of course, he holed out to the third man fielder while attempting a cut shot. The Yuvi comparisons post the Trivandrum T20I slowly died down and in Hamilton, he barely looked like a badly moulded copy of Mitchell Johnson, albeit with the bat. You could sense that he was out of his depth.
But this was always bound to happen. Dube not succeeding at the international level, that too this early on his career, does not come as a surprise, for he was never ready for this challenge. He had all of 19 T20 matches under his belt prior to making his T20 debut and the fact remains that he was never ready for this. Unlike an Iyer or a Pant or even a Saini, he never competed toe-to-toe against the best in the IPL where, despite having been bought for a hefty sum of 5 crore, he featured in only 4 matches.
And whilst he got through the first 20 metres unscatched - through adrenaline and perhaps through self-belief - with every stroke post that, the water levels started raising and gradually, he started drowning. 7 days of low-intensity training was never going to be enough for me to swim across the pool and, similarly, for Dube, 15 matches in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy - and a few more in Mumbai T20 League - was never going to enough to cut it at the international level.
But Dube’s failure could and should be accounted to more than him being under-prepared and under-cooked for the challenge, for he should have never been picked for T20 cricket in the first place. Not because of his lack of experience, but because all his success - be it for Mumbai or India A - came in four-day cricket. In the 2018/19 Ranji Trophy season, he’d averaged 52 with the bat and 23 with the ball, a performance which he followed up with his rock-solid showing in the Caribbean, a series where he averaged 60 with the bat and 33 with the ball.
© BCCIIn stark contrast, in the 2018 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, he could only manage just 103 runs in 7 innings with the bat, while with the ball, he could only sport an economy rate of 10.00. And this season, those figures worsened, with his batting average dropping to 10.40 in 7 innings, whilst he only picked a total of 6 wickets in 7 matches with the ball. That he can clear the boundary ropes with ease and has a power-packed game is a testament to his talent, but just because he can do it must not mean that he should do it.
Dube’s selection, in turn, also incites the fear of a bigger issue brewing in the background. Wrong players being picked for the wrong formats is not a rare occurrence in Indian cricket; it has happened before. Arguably the biggest victim of that farce, over the years, has been Mohammad Siraj. It was not long ago that he averaged a tad under 18 with the ball in first-class cricket, yet, he was thrown in the firing line in T20s on the back of a half-raw IPL season, where, ironically, his economy rate was over 9. Three matches, 148 runs and an economy rate of 12 later, he was a running joke in Indian cricket.
Owing to being picked in the wrong format, not only was he not able to make the best use of his skills and deliver his best, but his confidence, in turn, was also dented. Two years later, his first-class average hovers around the 22-run mark with it rising with every passing season. Siraj is not a one-off, either. Manish Pandey has featured in more T20Is whereas his game is clearly better suited to the 50-over format; Jayadev Unadkat has been treated as a limited-over specialist wherein he excels in four-day cricket and Subramaniam Badrinath, of all people, back in the day, played 9 limited-over games in comparison to just two Tests. Of the four players mentioned above, none of them made it big at the international stage. Unlike Dube, they were not under-prepared, but they sure were misused.
That the right players are being identified and given opportunities is laudable, but the responsibility of the selectors must lie beyond that, for they must ensure that players are blooded in the correct format. The sample size might be miniscule, but from the little evidence that we have at our hands, it is clear that Dube, at this point of time, is suited more to the longer format. In no way does this mean that he needs to be given a Test cap or that he will never make it in the shorter formats. The bottom line remains: he is a work in progress and he was made to bite more than he could chew. His selection can, however, serve as a lesson to the selectors, for blooding under-cooked players into team, and that too in the wrong format, is neither beneficial to the team or the player in the long run.
The selectors can ponder over their mis-step - or mistake - all they want, but the fact remains that the Dube we are seeing right now - irrespective of the format - is not good enough to play international cricket. It was on the eighth day that I realized that I was out of my depth, but six days later, on the day the course ended, I was able to successfully swim across the pool. Dube, right now, is out of his depth in international cricket, but if a nine-year-old me can learn to swim in six days time, there is no reason why Dube cannot conquer world cricket with a few more matches under his belt.
