T20 World Cup | IND vs NED: Shivam Dube’s tease before the tempest | Cricket News
5 min readAhmedabadUpdated: Feb 18, 2026 10:10 PM IST The stroke pleased Shivam Dube. He watched it fleece the dewy outfield to the fence at extra cover. He punched his fists and raised his arms to the jubilant weekday fans — celebrating his half-century, off 25 balls, on a surface that was not the smoothest to bat. He could have been celebrating the stroke too. Full and wide, his long and muscular arms had to stretch like the elongated flaps of an aeroplane. He bent to get under the ball from Logan van Beek, found the sweetest connection, and it sped towards the ropes, bisecting two converging fielders. Not his most spectacular stroke of the night, but certainly his sweetest — arguably his most perfect. It was a stroke that captured the varied shades of batting. He hits sixes; it’s his calling card, the reason CSK devotees call him the “aarusami” (loosely, six-master). But his batting is not all about flaying sixes or battering the leg-side arc between long-on and square-leg. He can strum more …