The former India batter Aakash Chopra has raised doubts over the composition of selectors under Ajit Agarkar, who has recently not included any all-rounder Shivam Dube for the upcoming T20I series against England. The reality is the performance of Dube, who was a part of the T20 World Cup-winning squad in the last year, has changed under the existing coach Gautam Gambhir and the new significant level in Ajit Agarkar’s position has been recorded. After the triumph at the World Cup, Dube went and played his T20I series on a tour of Zimbabwe and then Sri Lanka but didn’t prove it to the Indian selectors for the forthcoming home series against Bangladesh and for the tour of South Africa away.
“What happened to Shivam Dube? I also wanted to talk about Ruturaj (Gaikward), but he always fades because for him, he could never set his space; of course, Rajat Patidar is there. Quite a bit of batting. But now I will be talking a little bit about Shivam Dube. He was a member of the T20 World Cup-winning team,” Chopra said on his YouTube channel.
“If you win, your name should come up. Even in the final, he played decently. At his inning, there were questions. He has also been fielding or batting badly,” he added before he rested the matter by noting that now he has won the World Cup .
Though it seems as if selectors have decided to identify Nitish Reddy as Hardik Pandya’s potential backup, Chopra feels Dube should get a longer stint in the team as the southpaw played a crucial role in India’s T20 World Cup win.
“Then he had a lapse in terms of injury, less opportunities came his way, and he is now out of the team. No one is also talking about him. Parag is not spoken about because he has an injury but no one is asking where Dube went. He suddenly disappeared from the horizon,” Chopra asked.
Chopra has got a point, saying that the player would have walked into the team because even if Dube were out injured for a brief time, he is proving to be a very useful member of the squad.
“If he is good enough to get yourself into a World Cup squad, I am sure he is worthy of playing for a couple more years. He’s been out by injury but there was a theory earlier that whoever goes out due to injury, will come back in first, and whoever replaced him will have to sit out no matter what he might have done,” he told PTI.