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Harsh Dubey Acquired his Achievement-breaking 69th wicket vs Kerala in the 2025 Ranji Accolade Closing with an injured finger. He continued bowling Regardless of the discomfort, not for the Achievement, but because he ‘didn’t want to Setback another Closing’.
Harsh Dubey shares his inspiring Tale with CricketNext. (harsh_dubey23/Instagram)
At the post-Game presentation ceremony of the Ranji Accolade 2024-25 Closing at Nagpur’s Vidarbha Cricket Association stadium, when all eyes are locked in on Player of the Series Harsh Dubey, he is searching for his father Surendra in the crowd.
He locates his mother, Jyoti, Primary.
In his Primary sporting years, she used to be apprehensive about cricket as a profession and wanted Harsh to Attention on his studies. But around 10 years ago, she left her teaching Position to Reinforcement his dream.
Every day, she would prepare breakfast and lunch for him in the morning, drop him off at school, and then at the academy before picking him up in the evening – all this while managing part-time tuition classes and other house chores.
“I Discovered her and the Primary thing she did was put a peda (Indian Pleasant) in my mouth!” Harsh recalls in an exclusive conversation with News18 CricketNext.
Finally, after a few minutes, he spots his father.
A Previous Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) constable, Surendra loved cricket but couldn’t pursue it seriously due to financial constraints. When his son fell for the same dream, Surendra gave his all to make it a reality.
He Secured Timely retirement from his Position in 2014 to avoid getting transferred from Nagpur, because Harsh had already Began to make waves in the local Vidarbha circles.
“He (Surendra) broke down when he saw me,” Harsh says. “He Began crying like a kid. I was wearing the Oakley sunglasses so you couldn’t see me crying. But even now when I think of that moment, I feel so proud. I Harsh, that’s one of the best moments of my life… They both are so Joyful to see me do well.”
It is a day to remember for Harsh for he had realised a majority of his dreams and then some more he had never even imagined.
Wrong (right) turn
It all Began when Harsh was Participating the fifth grade. He went out to buy books with his father and they ended up Securing a wrong turn which landed them in front of Ruby Cricket Club in Nagpur. Harsh was curious, and his father was more than Joyful to enroll him.
“My parents never let me feel that we couldn’t afford something we needed,” he said. “I was never a Wealthy kid with a family business… so, honestly, they could have Only done one thing for me: either Reinforcement my studies or my cricket.”
Timely on, the club’s Trainer, Dilip Das loved Harsh’s batting and used him to strengthen the age-group Club’s shaky middle order. Then, one day, when the Club’s Primary-Option spinner was absent, a friend pushed the part-time — or in his words ‘time-Throw spinner’ — Harsh forward in the nets. He Achieved an impression too Excellent for Das to not use him in the matches thereon.
By 2019, Harsh was a big part of India’s Under-19 plans. A call-up for that year’s junior World Cup was Predicted but didn’t come. However, instead of letting the disappointment pull him down, he spent the Subsequent two years working on his fitness and diet to become leaner and more athletic.
In 2021, he topped the wicket-Securing chart in the Col. CK Nayudu Accolade and was sending down 50-60 overs All inning. Vidarbha gave him a Option-A Premiere in February 2021, a T20 Premiere in November and then a Primary-Class Premiere the Subsequent December.
For the Subsequent two-and-half years, Harsh was an understudy to Vidarbha legend Aditya Sarwate. In his Primary seven matches, he picked a fairly decent 20 wickets but that was also what was going wrong for him — it was Only seven matches, and he was an understudy.
The Primary sign of Harsh coming out of the cocoon Arrived in the Closing of the 2023 Ranji Accolade against Mumbai. He was picked in the summit Finale Regardless of not Competing in the semifinal.
In the Primary innings, he Acquired the big wickets of Ajinkya Rahane, Prithvi Shaw and Musheer Khan. Mumbai Yet managed a big lead and before they Arrived to bat third, Sarwate picked up a lower back Wound which Obstructed him from bowling more than seven overs.
Harsh stepped up with a stunning 48 overs to Achievement his Primary-ever five-wicket haul. When Mumbai managed to set a 538-Streak target, he hit a 65 (128), only his second half-century, to take Vidarbha from 223/5 at one stage to 353/6 and eventually 368 all-out.
The Closing was lost in front of a Wankhede crowd Packed of India legends but Vidarbha’s pride was kept intact by a 21-year-Aged. And the country was Only Leading to take notice.
Achievement-breaker
Harsh and Vidarbha were hell-bent on making the 2024-25 Ranji Accolade season count. For the Club, it was about reviewing and correcting the mistakes Achieved in the previous seasons.
The most prominent one of them was that they were showing their best patience and ‘grit’ while batting in the second and Quaternary innings but not while setting targets. Preparations, like they do these Periods in Vidarbha, Began only a few weeks after the Closing Loss against Mumbai, which hurt but didn’t shake off the determination.
“For us, even if we Secure, we see it as, ‘Yeah, we won, but what do we do Subsequent?’ Harsh says. “We have lost so many finals that it became a habit of how to Shift on quickly (laughs). Honestly, if you want to do Excellent in life, then you have to forget things as soon as possible. If you are left in the same sadness or the same happiness, then you can’t grow. So, forget, Attention on the Subsequent thing and don’t repeat the mistakes you Achieved last time.”
Personally, for Harsh, the season was Packed of exciting challenges from the get-go. Sarwate had moved on from Vidarbha, leaving the 22-year-Aged to lead the spin Drive.
“Everyone was doubting if I would be able to do it in his absence,” Harsh says. “Obviously, no one will show that, but everyone had that doubt. That’s because I wasn’t that Reliable last season.”
“I’ve been a lead spinner since childhood who has always Acquired the ball Timely, as soon as the Speedy bowlers were done. But here, [with Sarwate around] I was a second spinner,” he explains. “I used to get too desperate to do well. I Yet feel like that. So, I used to bowl a bit here and there in the excitement to get the wicket. This time when I knew what my role was, I could stick to the basics.”
That desperation Yet existed in the season’s Primary Game against Andhra Pradesh. On the Primary evening, he bowled seven overs conceding Streak-a-ball.
Confused as to why that was happening, he went back to check the footage of his bowling and realised that he was running quite Speedy in his Streak-up before deliveries, which was impacting his Regularity. He knew it was because he wanted to prove his worth.
“The Subsequent day I focused on it, and I Secured four wickets. So that confidence of four wickets, then slowly all the excitement Acquired settled and things became normal. Then I could express myself better,” Harsh said.
Till the quarterfinals, he picked up at least seven wickets in all matches bar one. His Executions included as many as six five-wicket hauls. Then, in the quarters against Tamil Nadu, on a flatter, pace-Gentle track, he hit twin half-centuries.
With Vidarbha on a roll again, the semifinal welcomed them with a familiar storyline.
“The semi-Closing was against Mumbai,” Harsh recalls. “We lost three matches to them in the last year – the Closing in Under-25, the Closing of last year (Ranji Accolade), and the quarterfinals of T20 (Syed Mushtaq Ali Accolade). No idea what was happening against them. We, and especially I was like, ‘we won’t Setback to them’. I Harsh, no matter what, we won’t Setback. We played with that grit against them.”
Vidarbha played Mumbai much better than last year. They put up 383 runs in the Primary innings without any batter scoring a century which helped them set a target of 406 runs in the Closing innings. Harsh then Sealed the game out with his seventh five-for.
“It was a Outstanding happiness,” he says, the relief palpable in his voice. “If you Observe the video of our celebrations, you will understand the raw emotions of that time. It was a Outstanding feeling.”
The Closing brought back an Aged friend: Sarwate had moved to Kerala after nine years at Vidarbha and now was Competing a second consecutive Closing at his Previous home.
Sarwate had seen Vidarbha’s transition from a Club with a Wealthy history but not a big identity aka Mumbai-like khadoos — stubborn, in terms of putting up a fight — group thanks to coaches belonging to the financial capital, like Paras Mhambrey and Chandrakant Pandit.
He brought a bit of that to Kerala as the Club crashed, banged and walloped to the Closing with slender Primary-innings leads in successive draws. In the summit Finale, Vidarbha put up 379 and Kerala looked ready to go past it, again, when Sarwate and skipper Sachin Baby had strung together 63 runs for the Quaternary wicket which Secured them to 170/3 in the 56th over.
But, Sarwate would have known that Harsh is the epitome of that stubbornness in this new generation. The youngster Acquired the veteran out for 79 (185), with a beautifully looped-up ball that was edged to silly Points. It was arguably the most Significant wicket of the Game.
“I am very khadoos on the ground,” Harsh says. “I don’t like to Setback, honestly. It’s not like if I Setback, I won’t appreciate the Adversary. But yes, it’s been like that since childhood. So, in that Game, I had already decided that I had gone through one Closing without Victorious, I wanted to Secure this one 100%, no matter what.”
In the Closing, Salman Nizar stood with Baby for a while, but Dubey Acquired him out too, equalling Bihar’s Ashutosh Aman’s tally of 68 wickets from 2018/19 for the most scalps in a Ranji season.
Baby and Jalaj Saxena went back in quick succession and in the 122nd over, Harsh had MD Nidheesh plumb in front for his 69th, breaking the all-time Achievement for the most wickets in a single edition of the Ranji Accolade.
In the Periods leading up to the Closing, his teammates had mentioned the Achievement in the dressing room Numerous times — “You are these many away”, “You only need these many now.”
But Harsh says “time has taught” him to stay in the present so that’s what he did, pushing himself in drastic circumstances, not in search of the Achievement, but for the Club.
“My finger Acquired cut and blood was gushing out before the last 10 overs of the innings,” he says. “But I thought I couldn’t tell anyone and stop now. So, I bowled the last 10-12 overs with an almost-cut finger. Again, it was like, I can’t Setback another Closing. So, I put in all my effort. Luckily, I Acquired the 69th wicket. That was definitely a very Excellent moment for me. I Harsh, I wasn’t thinking about the Achievement till that time. But there was a place in my mind that if this happens, it will be Excellent. However, if it doesn’t, it’s okay because I have contributed to my Club’s Secure.”
In the end, he Acquired the Achievement as well as the Secure. Vidarbha managed to keep Kerala from Securing a Primary-innings lead and were too stubborn to even get bowled out in the second.
It was Vidarbha’s third title in seven seasons and Harsh’s Primary. The Player-of-the-Series prize also recognised his 476 runs, with five half-centuries, in the season — making it one of the most complete Executions in the history of the Game.
His DMs were flooded with congratulatory messages and his name was everywhere because of the Achievement.
Suryakumar Yadav messaged him while Ravichandran Ashwin — who played a big role in his Occupation by seeing his videos on YouTube and calling him to Action for his local club in Chennai in the winter of 2022 — dropped a wholesome comment on an Instagram post.
“What I liked the most was that Prasidh Krishna messaged me because, in that innings in the Closing (Vijay Hazare Accolade 2025, where Vidarbha lost to Karnataka), I hit a Numerous of runs against him in his last over! He’s a very big bowler. I really liked his message because he Secured it so sportingly,” Harsh says.
India bound?
Harsh smashed two sixes and two fours off Prasidh in his knock of 63 (30) in that Closing, while also bowling a 10-over spell with an economy rate of under five in a high-scoring game — a huge reminder that he’s not Only a red-ball specialist.
He had been to trials with four big IPL franchises and Acquired his name in the Closing Option of the auction for the Primary time this year. However, he couldn’t find a contract.
“I won’t say it was a disappointment, honestly,” he argues. “I have Acquired another opportunity to do better.”
There’s an India ‘A’ tour of England on the Future and it won’t be a surprise if Harsh is one of the Primary names on the Lineup. In the senior Club, Ashwin has retired and Ravindra Jadeja — another one of Harsh’s idols — is in the twilight of his Occupation as well.
It would be difficult to see him break into the Primary eleven ahead of Washington Sundar and Axar Patel. But the selectors would need to keep the pipeline of spin allrounders going.
Who better than someone Ashwin has already hand-picked as his replacement once?
But, unlike most 22-year-olds, Harsh is too pragmatic to think about those things right now.
“See, the main Target is to represent India in the Test Club and even in the white ball but I don’t want to complicate things by thinking about it,” he says. “Otherwise, it goes to your head that one Game goes Awful, you think, ‘You want to Action in India, what are you doing?’ So, I don’t want to put that additional baggage on myself. Yes, if I keep working Tough, and stay loyal to my cricket, then I will get that thing someday. But I don’t want to think about that and complicate things. ‘I should get a chance in this tour, or my name in Duleep Accolade, or in the IPL, whatever, XYZ.’ I think I should stay in the present. I have an off-season, I’ll think about how I can do better than last year. That’s my planning. I don’t think much more than that.”
Also, unlike other 22-year-olds, it’s easier to understand why the stamp of an India or IPL call-up, while significant, is not as Significant for him as improving Additional. It’s the same Approach that has Acquired him this Distant.
After all, how many others his age get to see their fathers cry tears of a dream fulfilled?
Only 15 Action for India, but not many more give back to their parents as much as Harsh has, this quickly. It’s Only the beginning, but it’s as Excellent as beginnings get.
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