It is not often that a player expresses disappointment after having smashed a 58-ball-hundred, but Shivam Dube was far from pleased on Thursday. Despite his blistering maiden List-A century, Mumbai fell nine runs short against Karnataka in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. “I batted well but I am disappointed that I could not finish the job off. What matters is that your team should win,” he said.
Dube was cramping from dehydration and clearly struggled to run between the wickets, but that was not a factor in his approach, he insisted. “That is my natural game. I like to play big shots. I always like to dominate the bowlers,” the 26-year-old said.
Karnataka’s K. Gowtham praised Dube’s effort. “At that stage (after the loss of the sixth wicket), I thought they would try to rotate the strike and build partnerships. I didn’t expect him (Dube) to go into aggressive mode like that. He struck the ball really well. Credit goes to him,” he said.
Even with Mumbai nine wickets down, Karnataka captain Manish Pandey held Abhimanyu Mithun back and instead went with an already-expensive Shreyas Gopal. Gowtham sought to explain the move. “Shreyas has been a top wicket-taker for us. It was one of those rare off days for him but the captain still had that belief in him. He could have easily taken a wicket for us,” he said.
Gowtham admitted that Karnataka, which was sloppy in the field, ought to have done better. “We had some hiccups. We missed a couple of chances and it almost cost us. We need to improve on the field,” he said.
