The T20 World Cup winner Shivam Dube has once again proved to make an impact with his cameo (33 runs) during the Asia Cup 2025 finals played on September 28 at Dubai.
With the top order failure, Dube joined Tilak Varma to complete the chase. He also excelled with bowling throughout the tournament, and with Hardik Pandya being ruled out, he was entrusted to open the bowling attack.
He showed remarkable composure with two discipline overs in the powerplay and ended with a 3-0-23-0, providing an immense support to spinners and Bumrah on restricting Pakistan to a low total.
While he came to bat in tricky situation, Dube unleashed a natural power game. His 33 runs off 33 deliveries at a strike rate of 150 including two sixes and two fours, turned tables against Pakistan.
His steady partnership with Tilak Varma steadied nerves after early wickets had put India tattered with early wickets.
Even though Shivam Dube perished on the final ball of the penultimate over, the job was already done. Bu then, India needed only 10 runs in last over.
With Tilak Varma equalling the scores, the winning runs came from Rinku Singh’s bat who finished with a four claiming a five-wicket victory.
Shivam Dube has been picked in to play a certain role, destroy spin in the middle overs. His number were elite during January 2023 and April 2024, as he hit 367 runs in 26 innings at a strike rate of 166.
But his numbers dropped alarmingly until the midway of Asia Cup. He did hardly bowled in IPL 2025 because of the impact player rule didn’t help his cause. With needing big performances at the Asia Cup, he went on with impressive bowling skills and also bowled the opening over in the place of Hardik Pandya.
He priortised fitness and took a decent workload in nets polishing his variations and tuning his batting style.
