Something peculiar happened in the tenth over of India's run-chase. After Shivam Dube launched his first ball for a six and then nudged a single to keep strike, the obvious response seemed clear: throw the ball to a seamer, Dube's so-called kryptonite. Especially when that first-ball six clocked 101 metres and came against the left-arm spin of opposition captain Mitchell Santner.

Instead, Santner turned to Glenn Phillips, a part-time offspinner, hoping he would spin the ball away from Dube's arc on a Vizag pitch that was offering some grip.

That moment, taken in its entirety, spoke volumes about how far Dube's game has evolved. To the point where oppositions no longer see him as a batter who can simply be barraged with pace and kept quiet. There are more layers to his batting now, even to him as an all-rounder, which has made him a crucial part of India's T20I line-up.

It hasn't happened overnight. There were precedents to this evolution. His 27 off 16 in the 2024 T20 World Cup final. His 33 off 22 in the Asia Cup final a few months later, where he also found himself taking the new ball in Hardik Pandya's injury absence. Both big nights, tense situations, when the game has a way of testing the best.

But this run-chase in Vizag, agreed without the high stakes, asked for something else.

India, already 3-0 up in the five-match series, chose to make a night of it. Ishan Kishan's niggle was used to stretch the batting, bringing in Arshdeep Singh and leaving India with six batters. Rinku Singh was pushed up to No.4, part of a broader attempt to see how players respond to unfamiliar roles ahead of a World Cup. Earlier, all the overs were bowled by India's five frontline bowlers, with no fallback overs for the all-rounders, even though India had two of them in the side.

"We purposely played six batters today," Suryakumar Yadav said later. "We wanted to have five perfect bowlers and wanted to challenge ourselves. For example, if we're chasing 200 or 180 and we're two down or three down, how does it look?"

The night offered that answer soon enough. By the time Dube walked out, India's experiment had fully taken shape. Abhishek Sharma had fallen first ball. There was no Kishan to maximise the powerplay. Sanju Samson was still finding his way back, and Suryakumar had perished to a reflex return catch. To add to it all, the dew never arrived as India had expected. The pitch, as a result, slowed down, offered more turn, and made timing the big hits harder.

It also clarified what was being asked of Dube. With India short on batting and the conditions offering little margin, there was no secondary role to lean on. For an all-rounder, that matters. This was a blank canvas and whatever India were to make of the chase would have to come off his bat alone.

When Dube arrived, India's win probability sat at two percent. By the time a freak run-out at the bowler's end ended his stay, it had climbed to nine. India never truly seized control and went on to suffer their second-heaviest home defeat, but the chase only looked alive when Dube was at the crease. The only sustained resistance came from one place.

He had arrived as early as the ninth over, with the asking rate climbing steadily. When he reached his half-century, a 15-ball effort that became India's third-fastest in T20Is, the worm briefly overlapped New Zealand's. It was the only time it did.

Dube finished with 65 off 23 balls. Thirty-six of those runs came against spin, his strength, at a strike rate of 400. Yet it was his work against pace that mattered just as much. The 29 runs he scored off 14 balls ensured New Zealand could not simply shut one option and offset it with quiet overs of pace.

Santner, whose first ball of the chase was dispatched into the stands, summed it up later. Dube, he said, is clear about what he wants to do. When the spinner comes on, he knows it is a match-up to take on.

"When you flip it to Dube, he's very clear about what he wants to do," Santner said. "When the spinner comes on, he knows that's a good match-up for him and it doesn't matter if it's the first ball or his 20th ball, he's going to try to take it on. And he did tonight.

"I guess it makes things a little bit simpler when you know you need 13s or 14s. But if he's going like that, it's pretty tough to stop, as we found."

That clarity, Dube said, has come from repetition and trust. "I'm getting better with my mindset because I'm playing all those matches now," he said. "I know what's going to happen, what the main thing is that the bowler is going to come at me with.

"I'm bowling thanks to Gauti bhai and Surya, they've given me the bowling opportunity. When you bowl, you become a little smarter."

Ironically, on this night, Dube did not bowl at all by design.

"That experience has come to me and it's going in the right direction," he added. "There are many things people upgrade; all players do. Teams upgrade themselves too. For me, it's very important. I can't be the same as I was before. I try to be a little better, a little smarter in the next game I play.

"I've learned how to understand my strengths and where I can target them. It's about match-ups. They want me to hit spinners. That's my role, to keep the strike rate high in the middle overs. But I try to do that against fast bowlers as well. I know where my strength lies and how I can put pressure on the opposition. My mindset is very clear there."

And perhaps that is what the night revealed. On an experimental night for India, when the result mattered less than the answers, Dube was left with one clear ask.

With little depth behind him, New Zealand's response pointed to where the threat lay, even persisting with spin after the first ball had gone the distance. The chase slipped away, but the image of Glenn Phillips being handed the ball to bowl to Dube lingered. It captured where Dube now stands: no longer a batter teams wait to expose but one they actively plan to stop.