Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], April 23 : As Chennai Super Kings (CSK) prepares to lock horns with Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) at their home arena of Chepauk Stadium, all eyes will be on the batting all-rounder Shivam Dube, who is enjoying a rich vein of form in this season.
CSK will be locking horns with LSG at Chennai's Chepauk Stadium on Tuesday, with the five-time champions currently at fourth place with four wins and three losses, aggregating a total of eight points. They had lost to LSG by eight wickets in their previous match on Friday at Lucknow on April 19. LSG is at the fifth spot in the table with the same win-loss and points, but they have a lower net run rate.
Dube is in hard-hitting form this season and not only he is a key player in CSK's title defence, but also is making a case for a slot in the ICC T20 World Cup to start on June 1 in West Indies/USA.
In seven matches, Dube has scored 245 runs at an average of 49.00 and a strike rate of 157.05, with two half-centuries. His best score is 66*. Dube is the top-run scorer for his franchise this season, with his rival being Ruturaj Gaikwad (241 runs in seven matches at an average of 40.16 and a strike rate of 130, with two fifties).
Dube is a different player altogether in CSK. In 34 matches and 32 innings, he has scored 952 runs at an average of 36.62 and a strike rate of over 157.36. His best score is 95*. These numbers are way better than his statistics for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) (169 runs in 15 matches) and Rajasthan Royals (230 runs in nine matches).
Since IPL 2023, no other Indian IPL batter at number four or five has got more runs than Dube. He has scored 532 runs at an average of 48.36, with a strike rate of over 160. His balls per boundary ratio is 4.8.
In this aspect, Dube's rival is Mumbai Indians (MI) batter Tilak Varma, who has scored 447 runs at an average of 40.64 and a strike rate of 157.9, with a ball per boundary ratio of 4.6. Suryakumar Yadav is at number three with 369 runs at an average of 33.55 and a strike rate of 170.8, with a ball per boundary ratio of 3.9.
Also since IPL 2023, nobody is smashing spinners among Indian batters than Dube. He has scored 275 runs against spin at an average of 55.0 and a strike rate of over 179, with a ball per boundary ratio of 4.5.
Lucknow Super Giants Squad: Quinton de Kock, KL Rahul(w/c), Nicholas Pooran, Marcus Stoinis, Deepak Hooda, Ayush Badoni, Krunal Pandya, Matt Henry, Ravi Bishnoi, Mohsin Khan, Yash Thakur, Arshin Kulkarni, Krishnappa Gowtham, Yudhvir Singh Charak, Manimaran Siddharth, Arshad Khan, Prerak Mankad, Amit Mishra, Kyle Mayers, Shamar Joseph, Ashton Turner, Naveen-ul-Haq, Devdutt Padikkal, Mayank Yadav
Chennai Super Kings Squad: Ajinkya Rahane, Rachin Ravindra, Ruturaj Gaikwad(c), Ravindra Jadeja, Shivam Dube, Sameer Rizvi, Moeen Ali, MS Dhoni(w), Deepak Chahar, Tushar Deshpande, Mustafizur Rahman, Matheesha Pathirana, Shardul Thakur, Shaik Rasheed, Nishant Sindhu, Mitchell Santner, Daryl Mitchell, Aravelly Avanish, Maheesh Theekshana, RS Hangargekar, Simarjeet Singh, Mukesh Choudhary, Prashant Solanki, Ajay Jadav Mandal, Richard Gleeson.