Chennai Super Kings lost their second consecutive match of the IPL 2022 season as Lucknow Super Giants beat them by six wickets at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai on Thursday.
CSK were in the driving seat in the match until the 19th over. They had 34 runs to defend off the last two overs and that was when Shivam Dube was handed the ball to bowl his first over in the game. It was a risky move but MS Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja backed him considering the experience he has gathered while playing for India and in the IPL over the years.
As it turned out, that over completely turned the match in Lucknow’s favour. Evin Lewis and Ayush Badoni teared into his bowling as they smashed him to every nook and corner of the ground. That over yielded 25 runs and just made the task easier for Lucknow.
Former India batter Sunil Gavaskar minced no words as he completely teared into Dube for his poor game awareness in such a tense situation.
“He has played a fair bit of limited-overs cricket and he is still bowling those length balls. He is going to get punished. Of course, it’s not fair that somebody who has not bowled so far is given the 19th over when the batsmen are looking to play the shots. But look at it… it’s a length ball. He is bowling the slower delivery but a slower delivery is very useful on a turning, dry pitch. Not on a pitch where the ball is coming off the bat quite nicely,” Gavaskar said on air.
“Clearly, CSK’s calculation as far as who should be bowling is going wrong. A length ball and a nice easy swing on this lovely batting pitch. He clearly hasn’t learnt anything, Shivam Dube. A quicker ball but length ball this time and it has gone the distance. The first ball went for a six, and then he was smashed for a boundary. Then again, a boundary and then the last ball going to a six – 25 runs,” added Gavaskar.
Dube had a pretty good outing with the bat, though. He walked out to bat at number 4 after the fall of Robin Uthappa’s wicket, and smashed 49 off just 30 balls. It looked like he was going to get his fifty but he git dismissed while trying to lift a delivery from Avesh Khan over the mid-wicket boundary. His outing with the ball, however, didn’t turn out to be fruitful as his over turned out to be one of the main reasons behind CSK’s loss.
