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Young Indian batter Shubham Dubey reacted to receiving INR 5.8 Crore bid by the Rajasthan Royals in the IPL 2024 auction. The uncapped player was roped in by the 2008 winners for a whopping sum of ₹5.80 Crore. The 29-year-old left-handed batsman from Nagpur said that like other uncapped players, he was also hoping to get picked, but he never thought that his life would take a dramatic turn so suddenly.
Dubey was quoted by the Indian Express as saying, “In T20 Syed Mushtaq Ali, I did well so I was hoping that I would be picked but itna bada amount aayega (this much money)…! I never thought that I would get Crores. Now my responsibility has increased.” The cricketer got into the Vidarbha state team two seasons ago and had a wonderful season at the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2023. He scored a crucial 20-ball 58 to chase down the target set by Bengal.
He opened up on his family’s financial hardships and said that with such a huge amount of money coming in, his life would certainly change for good. The Nagpur-born cricketer said. “My father is without a job for a while now, and we went through really bad times. My father did some work here and there. I used to play for Advocate XI Club here and there used to be a coach named Sujit Jaiswal, who passed away during Covid. I didn’t even have money to even buy new gloves, it was him who gave me everything and made me play for his club. Today everything came in a flashback when I saw RR buying me.”
In a video posted by the RR, their Director of High Performance, Zubin Bharucha said, “He has been unbelievable in his sort of journey. His journey has been almost as tough and tedious as Jaiswal’s (Yashasvi) journey. He couldn’t afford to buy his own bat this year. Just think that is an example of what these players go through some of them where they need to get to. But he has been able to push his game one step after another step slow and steadily, up to domestic level.”
Also Read | RR squad IPL 2024: Full list of players purchased by Rajasthan Royals
