Inspired by Ravindra Jadeja, Harsh Dubey dreams of playing for India

Mumbai, Oct 8 (PTI) Harsh Dubey, Ranji Trophy's highest wicket-taker in a season and a Ravindra Jadeja fan, wants to represent India but the Vidarbha spin bowling all-rounder is in no hurry to don the national team jersey.

Dubey created history last season when he went past Bihar's Ashutosh Aman's record in India's premier domestic competition and finished with 69 wickets for most scalps in a season.

While he has been a part of India A's tour of England earlier this year, Dubey says trying to improve every season remains paramount for him as he looks to emulate Jadeja's feats for the national side.

"Since I started understanding cricket, I have been following Ravindra Jadeja and when I started understanding cricket properly, his performance reached its peak," Dubey told the media at the CEAT Cricket Rating Awards here on Tuesday.

"I have been idealising him since childhood. But before that, I used to follow Yuvraj (Singh) sir and Sachin (Tendulkar) sir." "My focus is always on what mistakes I am making throughout the season and then how can I rectify those and bring out a better version in the next," he said.

For a 23-year-old who has had a taste of the Indian Premier League this year when he played for Sunrisers Hyderabad, Dubey says red-ball cricket is his favourite format.

"Honestly, I like red ball (cricket) the most but I won't say that I don't like white ball (formats). For me, playing red ball cricket for India will be the biggest achievement of my life," he said.

Dubey, who scored 476 runs in the last Ranji edition with five fifties, said he has been putting in more efforts to improve as a batter in the off-season.

"I started cricket as an opener batsman so I work hard on my batting in off-season," he said.

For a left-arm spin-bowling all-rounder, Dubey is bound to face competition from the likes of Manav Suthar but he does not read much into it.

"Competition is everywhere, but I focus on how much better I am than the last year. I think about how do I improve myself rather than thinking that my competitor is this or that," he said.

Vidarbha's domination with the Ranji Trophy, which they won for the third time last season in 2024-25, continued when they crushed the Rest of India in the Irani Cup by 93 runs recently. Dubey says compatibility between players has a lot to do with it.

"It's a dream for any cricketer to play domestic cricket, and winning the Ranji Trophy and winning the Irani with it is a great feeling. This lot of players that we are playing with now, we have won at least 2-3 trophies in each age group so we know that it is a winning habit," he said.

Dubey also credited the systems set by Vidarbha Cricket Association for the team's success.

"Even the structure of our off-season camps in the VCA, it makes a lot of difference as to how strong your basics are. Our head coach Usman Ghani has coached most of our players in U-14 and U-19 levels, so he has a very good understanding of the players. The role of our our trainers, our physios, is also very important," he said.

Dubey said the exit of India batter Karun Nair from the Vidarbha camp would not have any impact on the defending Ranji champions.

"I read this somewhere that since Karun Nair is not there now, how would Vidarbha win the Irani Cup? We won the Irani (Cup), sir. I don't think there would be any gap with any player leave. We have enough players and even if there's no professional player in the camp, we can do well," he said. PTI DDV AH AH