Team India is all set to kickstart their campaign in the T20 World Cup tonight as they will be locking horns against Ireland in the curtain-raiser for themselves. Despite this being a clash of David versus Goliath on pen and paper, it goes without a saying that when they take the yard, it’s nothing about stature nor history.
We have seen Ireland forging massive upsets already in the history of World Cups and whether they are minnows or not, the Men in Blue will have to be on their toes to ensure the fact that they are going all guns blazing. Ahead of this important fixture, there is a major question looming large and it is about which left-hander apart from Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja should be a part of the playing XI. With Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shivam Dube in the mix, fans are kind of splintered on this one. Here are two reasons why India must start with Shivam Dube instead of Jaiswal.
#1 Shivam Dube destroys spin at its core
With the conditions entirely different from IPL and the ball turning a significant bit in both USA and West Indies, India will need someone who can get the job done when they are pitted against spin. The inclusion of Shivam Dube means that he can used as a floater and can be sent out to bat as er the situation. So if there is a wicket that falls in the middle-overs, then his arrival will mean that the opposition may hesitate to bring spin straight away considering Dube’s flair of hard-hitting. This will be psychological ploy too alongside Dube’s reputation of obliterating spin. However, he will have to be slightly careful as World Cup is altogether a different ball game from the Indian Premier League and with the surface being slightly sloppy, unless a batter shows smart applications, it may backfire.
#2 He is an all-rounder and is also a floater in terms of the batting order
Dube can be floated around the batting order considering his knack for hard-hitting. There is no specific role that he is bound to like Yashasvi and that is the biggest advantage for Team India. Apart from that, Dube is also an all-rounder which means that he can comfortably chime in with Hardik Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja to get in some crucial bowling options when his team needs him to. Jaiswal, on the contrary, is a very sharp fielder for sure but at the end of the day, all roads lead to Dube. However, one major factor that India will have to decide is if Dube is playing then does Kohli comes out with Rohit to open while Pant slots in at number three like the warm-up match.
