Ranji Trophy: How unlikely Shivam Dube instigated a Vidarbha collapse | Cricket News
Two weeks after England captain Jos Buttler criticised India’s decision to substitute the concussed Shivam Dube with outright quick Harshit Rana during a T20 game, Dube proved his bowling chops with a five-wicket haul against Vidarbha in the Ranji Trophy semifinal in Nagpur. His 5 for 49 on the track which didn’t offer much assistance to seamers bowlers, helped Mumbai restrict Vidarbha’s first innings tally to 383, even though Mumbai squandered the advantage with a shoddy batting performance. “Either Shivam Dube has put on about 25mph with the ball or Harshit has really improved his batting.It is not a like-for-like replacement,” Buttler would say. Here he didn’t crank up the pace or bend the ball around the corners. But he probed tight lines and length to prise out his third five-wicket haul in this format. He felt he bowled a few yards quicker than he normally does. “I have noticed that earlier in red-ball games I used to bowl in the mid-120s but in this game, many of my balls have crossed the 130 kph …
