Aakash Chopra believes that acquiring Shubham Dubey is a smart move for the Rajasthan Royals (RR). He sees Dubey as a solid lower-middle-order hitter for the IPL 2024 season.
Last month, at the auction, the Royals spent ₹5.80 crore on this Vidharbha player. They also added Rovman Powell to their lineup for ₹7.40 crore, another potential thunderbolt, for additional middle-order power.
Chopra lauded the Rajasthan Royals in a video posted to his YouTube channel for pursuing Powell and Dubey with the sole goal of strengthening their lower-middle order. He clarified:
“They went with an extremely clear strategy into the auction, that they need batters who can bat down the order. For that, they first started bidding for Rovman Powell, who interestingly enough came in the first set, and they went after him. They said they needed him. I liked the clarity.”
Aakash Chopra
The former India opener added:
“They didn’t stop there. It wasn’t easy to buy an Indian finisher in this auction. Shubham Dubey, Shahrukh Khan and Kumar Kushagra were the options. They tried their best and acquired Shubham Dubey. He is a left-hander who has come from tennis-ball cricket. He can tonk the ball properly.”
Aakash Chopra
In 19 T20 innings, Dubey has hammered 485 runs at an amazing strike rate of 145.20. With a strike rate of 90.34 and 159 runs in six innings, he has a respectable List A record as well.
“They just could not crack the Impact Player rule” – Aakash Chopra on Rajasthan Royals’ issues in IPL 2023
Aakash Chopra observed that the Rajasthan Royals didn’t use the Impact Player rule well in IPL 2023. He said:
“Rajasthan, for a very strange reason, although they are a team that lays a lot of emphasis on analytics, a lot of people say that they can make their XI based on numbers, but despite that, they just could not crack the Impact Player rule.”
Aakash Chopra
The former cricket player who is now a broadcaster emphasized how shallow the Royals’ batting and bowling lineups were. He said:
“They used to have only five bowlers and six batters. Every team had a batter at No. 7 and an extra bowler but their team didn’t used to have one, and even if there was one, they weren’t able to use him properly. It was baffling.”
Aakash Chopra
Chopra said that RR’s failure to make the playoffs was partly down to Jos Buttler’s lackluster performance. He did, however, remark that the Royals did not play as well as they might have given that Dhruv Jurel and Shimron Hetmyer did a respectable job down the order and that Yashasvi Jaiswal was in scorching form.