Veteran commentator Aakash Chopra feels Shubham Dubey is a great buy for the Rajasthan Royals (RR) as a lower-middle-order batter heading into IPL 2024 as well. Notably, the Royals bought the Vidharbha player for ₹5.80 crore at the auction and Rovman Powell for ₹7.40 crore as another big-hitting middle-order batter as well.

In a video shared on his YouTube channel, Chopra said: “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.”

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The former India opener again 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.”

However, Shivam Dubey has smashed 485 runs at a good strike rate of 145.20 in 19 T20 innings as well. He also has a great List A record, with 159 runs in six innings at 90.34. Aakash Chopra also said that the Rajasthan Royals failed to utilize their Impact Player rule effectively in IPL last season.

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“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 concluded. “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.”