Rajasthan Royals had entered the 2024 IPL auction with a purse of INR 14.5 crore. They made the first acquisition of the day, of Rovman Powell, for INR 7.4 crore, which left them with INR 7.1 crore.

They waited until the uncapped batters for their next purchase. Shubham Dubey, Vidarbha batter with more years (29) than professional cricket matches (20 Twenty20, 8 List A), was the first name on the set, at INR 20 lakh.

After Delhi Capitals opened the bid, Rajasthan were quick to respond. Both teams continued to raise the bar, presumably because Dubey had attended the trials for both. Neither team stopped until Delhi opted out at INR 5.8 crore – a whopping 29 times of Dubey’s base price.

Dubey plays for Vidarbha, who made it to the quarter-final of the 2023/24 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. Despite having played for the Under-23s, he first played for the senior team as late as in 2021/22, at an age of 27, and an ordinary debut season.

The next season, Vidarbha reached the semi-final, but there was little in Dubey’s performance (180 runs in eight innings, strike rate 122) that suggested anything spectacular.

It was in the 2023/24 season that he came to his elements. Vidarbha lost to Delhi in the quarter-final, but he had left a mark as a death-over hitter by then. From seven innings, he slammed 221 runs at a strike rate of 187, while getting dismissed once every 39 balls.

In the entire season, only Abhishek Sharma made more runs than Dubey at a better strike rate. He hit 18 sixes in 19.4 overs of batting – in other words, nearly a six every over. Add the 10 fours, and the boundary rate reads one every four balls. The fact that he hit substantially more sixes than fours was perhaps another thing that went in his favour.

Dubey soon earned a maiden Vijay Hazare Trophy call-up. Here, too, he made 159 runs at 31.80 at a strike rate of 90, helping Vidarbha reach the quarter-final.