Need sixes? Dial Shivam Dube

11.4 overs in, there is a hush around Chepauk. The Chennai Super Kings’ (CSK) innings has stuttered and stumbled a touch, although their captain has stood tall, showcasing the immense skill, craft, and guile to rattle along at a brisk rate. At the other end, Ravindra Jadeja is struggling, and that is probably an understatement.

The fifth ball of the 12th over is a slower short ball at the body. Jadeja tries to swipe it away but can only glove it through to KL Rahul. Chepauk descends into even more silence and the above-par score CSK need because of the impending arrival of dew, seems a fair distance away.

But then, all of a sudden, there is a cacophony of noise. Not as much as what greets MS Dhoni’s arrival, but this is still loud. A tall, sometimes stiff, but imposing figure is walking out to the middle and Chepauk has now found its voice.

Why, you may ask? Well, it is because this lad does the most fashionable thing to have ever existed in cricket (or at least white-ball cricket); smash sixes. And he does that so often that it is a surprise when he does not.

Had these words been used to describe Shivam Dube pre-2022, chances are that you would have been scoffed at. Or even ridiculed. But since rocking up in the CSK yellow, Dube has been, as his physique suggests, imposing.

Let’s now quickly get the numbers out of the way. Since the start of IPL 2022, no batter has hit more sixes than the left-hander. His 73 sixes place him at the top, with Jos Buttler and Nicholas Pooran behind him, tied on 69 sixes.

These 73 sixes have come across 632 balls, which roughly averages to a maximum every 8.65 balls – a remarkable achievement considering he has played a chunk of these matches at Chepauk (not regarded as a six-hitting ground).

As far as this season is concerned, only Abhishek Sharma (24) and Heinrich Klaasen (26) have cleared the fence more often than the CSK batter (22). While Abhishek and Klaasen have the likes of Aiden Markram and Travis Head – who have also been in stunning form - around them, Dube has been CSK’s predominant six-hitter, which goes to show that he is handling pressure fairly well.

But what the southpaw is achieving now is way beyond these numbers or stats. He is now staring down the opposition, and forcing them to change plans. And when they do, he is still pounding them into submission.

Shivam Dube has been smashing sixes for fun

His knocks against the Lucknow Super Giants and the Mumbai Indians were a perfect case in point. Since coming to CSK, he has developed a reputation of mauling spin-bowling. A strike rate of 162.06 drives that point home too.

Teams, thus, have been reluctant to bowl spin to the left-hander. In fact, spinners bowled a grand total of one ball to Dube in these aforementioned fixtures. That too was forced because Rachin Ravindra was dismissed off the fifth ball of Shreyas Gopal’s over at the Wankhede Stadium. Had MI had the option, they might have asked someone else to complete the over. Such is the fear factor around Dube now.

Coming back to the left-hander’s six-hitting prowess. It is revealing that he is now tearing pacers apart too. Against LSG, there were sixes over deep mid-wicket and long on, which is Dube’s staple diet. But there were also strokes over extra cover and a hammer back past the bowler, indicating that he is broadening his range.

Since becoming a CSK player, the left-handed hitter has a strike rate of 160.50 against pace. This season alone, that has zinged up to 168.96, further illustrating the point made above.

Post the knock, when quizzed why he took up the attacking mantle instantly, as opposed to playing himself in and feeding the strike to his captain, he was quick to quip that Gaikwad was just getting a little tired and that he wanted to take up the responsibility to ease the burden. A sign that he is reading the game as well as he has ever done.

In other encounters, when teams have bowled spin to him, well, they have been pummelled - at a strike-rate of 173.68. And it did not matter where the match was being held, or what the situation was. Whenever spin has come on against Dube, it has traveled.

So, to sum it up. Dube is hitting spin for sixes. Dube is hitting pace for sixes. Dube is hitting everyone for sixes. The perfect syllogism.

And at a time when India have been guilty of stacking their batting line-up with too many anchors, the left-hander might be the breath of fresh air they need. Only if they want to look in that direction, though.

That debate, of course, is for another day.

For now, this is about how a player, once maligned at other franchises, has found a home in Chennai, even becoming somewhat of a cult hero, not just in and around Chepauk, but also in Adyar, Anna Nagar, Besant Nagar, and the likes.

So much so that if you needed someone to hit sixes to save your life, you’d probably have Dube on speed dial. S for sixes. S for Shivam Dube. Pace, spin, conditions, pitches, ground dimensions – they do not matter.