Sports, living up to its repute of being an imitation of life, oft produces hilarious situations to throw all logic off-balance. India came under heavy fire recently for fielding Harshit Rana as a concussion substitute for Shivam Dube in Pine but the latter quickly put all doubts to bed in Mumbai.
India cruised to a mammoth victory in the final T20I against England at the Wankhede on Sunday set up by an Abhishek Sharma ton for the record books as the opener ended with 135 off just 54 deliveries, striking 13 maximums in the process. With England forced to go route one from the very go in a chase of 248, wickets quickly tumbled and before long found themselves at 82/4. However, a belligerent Phil Salt was still going strong having brought up a 21-ball half-century when Suryakumar Yadav introduced Shivam Dube into the attack to add further to the clash’s exhilerating narrative.
In the previous encounter, India had replaced Shivam Dube with bowling all-rounder Harshit Rana as a concussion substitute and the move came under heavy scrutiny after the pacer finished with match-winning figures of 3/33, with doubt projected over whether it was a like-for-like change as required by the laws of the game.
Dube, however, remained unperturbed and took pace off his very first delivery wide of off stump to earn a nick from Salt’s bat and dispatch the opener for 54. The 31-year-old later castled Jacob Bethell as well to end with impressive figures of 2/11 from his two overs and Twitterati was quick to throw all the criticism back their rival’s way for maligning Dube’s bowling abilities.
Oh!! WOWW!!
What a day for him!
Shivam dube should give credit to all fans
— Scout. (@ScoutXpro) February 2, 2025
Shivam Dube saw all the Social Media takes and decided to dominate England with ball as well 👊
— kinetic_45 (@kinetic_karthi) February 2, 2025
What else?
Hahaha!
Shivam Dube took wicket to justify the like-to-like replacement with #HarshitRana.
🏏🏏 pic.twitter.com/PkpI4IgzMU— 𝗚𝗜𝗠𝗠𝗜 𝗘𝗠𝗜𝗡𝗘𝗡𝗧 🇺🇸 (@GiMMiSaini) February 2, 2025
Shivam Dube proving with his bowling that harshit rana was his like for like replacement
— Bun Maska (@Bun_Maskha) February 2, 2025
OH MY LORD! BLOOD FOR BLOOD!
Yo!
CSK blood Shivam Dube giving belt treatment to RCB players Salt and Bethell pic.twitter.com/IARjfjrLAk
— Crayon (@Crayon_475) February 2, 2025
#Harshit is Like for like replacement for Shivam Dube 😂.#INDvsENG pic.twitter.com/jaI6BbFaVa
— Baroon Varma Барун Варма 🇮🇳 🇺🇦 (@BaroonV) February 2, 2025
LOL!
