A day after hitting five successive sixes in Ranji Trophy versus Baroda in a Ranji Trophy match, Shivam Dube was trying his best to relax on the couch at his home in Mumbai while watching the Indian Premier League player auction on television along with his family.
When his name popped up around 5.30pm, he was on the edge of his couch. What thrilled him more than the Rs. 5 crore he fetched as the final bid by the Royal Challengers Bangalore on Tuesday was that the IPL franchises, including Mumbai Indians, were involved in a fierce bidding war for him.
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“It was exciting but the moment I saw the first bid, I was kind of relaxed,” Dube told Sportstar . “The money doesn’t matter at this stage of my career. I hope I can repose the faith they have showed in me by continuing to perform consistently in what would be my first IPL.”
The 25-year-old lanky all-rounder was in the stands at the Wankhede Stadium when Mumbai Indians were pipped in a thrilling last-ball contest by Kings XI Punjab in the inaugural edition in 2008.
“Since then, I have cherished a dream of playing the IPL. But for a while I didn’t think it would come true since I had given up playing competitive cricket for five years from the age of 14 to 19,” Dube said.
After returning to the maidans of Mumbai, Dube with his ability to hit straight sixes at will and bowl a heavy-ball with his medium-pace bowling has had a rapid rise in cricket hierarchy.
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He marked his first-class debut in Ranji Trophy with a fifty and a fifer in Mumbai’s quarter-final loss against Karnataka in 2017-18.
Then came the Mumbai T20 League and he emerged as the player of the tournament, hitting leggie Pravin Tambe for five consecutive sixes.
It was followed by an impressive outing in Mumbai’s triumphant Vijay Hazare Trophy campaign. The earlier injury-prone cricketer continued in the same vein, scoring two hundreds, two fifties and picking a seven-wicket haul in Mumbai’s topsy-turvy Ranji season so far.
As a result, Dube was always on the radar of IPL franchises. But Dube is eyeing much more than the IPL laurels.
He has started working out rigorously on his fitness - something that will be under the scanner with his RCB captain Virat Kohli being a fitness-freak - over the last few months.
“I have been following a routine. I even had a chat with Shankar Basu (Indian team’s trainer) and he told me to stick to the same routine and not change anything during the season,” Dube said.
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