5 cricketers who were lucky to play for India in 2019

4. Shivam Dube

Shivam Dube would probably be the first person to accept that Lady Luck has been smiling on him of late. Not undermining his ability any bit, Dube has been at the right place at the right time to break through into the Indian team. Owing to a few factors discussed below, he has been fast-tracked in India colours on the back of just a handful of domestic games. It is not often that a young player makes it through to Team India without going through the grind of first-class cricket.

In December 2018, Dube hit five successive sixes in a Ranji Trophy match, just a day before the IPL auctions, to attract the attention of the franchises. The next day he was picked by Royal Challengers Bangalore for a whopping sum of 5 crore INR. Unfortunately, Dube had a forgettable IPL season. The focus of the country now shifted towards the ODI World Cup, where Hardik Pandya came of age. Vijay Shankar was No. 2 in the medium-pace bowling all-rounder pecking order.

Post the World Cup, Pandya got injured and Shankar fell out of favour. At the same time, Dube started producing consistent performances. He starred when South Africa A toured India, ending as the leading run-scorer for the hosts with 155 runs from four innings at a strike rate of almost 145.

Dube was extremely lucky and fortunate that the Indian team management decided to promote him at one drop in Trivandrum ahead of Virat Kohli. However, Dube certainly hasn’t done anything to merit his place in India’s plans for the T20 World Cup. He is just lucky that Hardik Pandya is out due to an injury, as once he’s back Dube would be out of the team. His only hope is to make the most of the remaining opportunities he gets against Sri Lanka before Pandya’s return and make a strong case for himself.