I wanted to write this post for a long time. I wanted to write it in April last
year, just after he got into a tight embrace with MS Dhoni with tears in his
eyes in Wankhede. But I held myself back. I thought it was a team performance
and as a lover of the Indian cricket team I should not point one person out.
Then I wanted to write it in last February, when he was seriously ill and
finally the official news of him being diagnosed with cancer was released in
the media. But again I held back. I thought my prayer would be more important
than my writing.
The thought again came in July,
precisely on 13th of
July, the day of the 10th anniversary
of the Natwest final win. But Dara Singh passed away on 12th and I felt greater urge to write a
tribute for my first hero than celebrating the win.
But today, I will not stop myself. I
will write about the champ, one of the greatest characters of Indian cricket,
Yuvraj Singh.
I first heard of Yuvraj singh in the
year 2000. ICC under-19 world cup was going on. Still there was no television
coverage, neither there was internet. But at least for the first time in my
memory I could read about the results of under-19 world cup in Ananda Bazar
Patrika. And two names were mentioned again and again - captain Md. Kaif and
Yuvraj Singh. Yuvraj with his all-round skill won the man-of-the-tournament in
India’s victorious campaign.
At the same time, Indian senior team
was going through a tough time. The scandal of ‘match-fixing’ was slowly going
away from public’s mind. A relative young Indian team with greats like Debang
Gandhi, Jacob martin, Hrishikesh Kanitkar and MSK Prasad made a tour to
Australia under the 2nd stint
of captaincy by Sachin Tendulkar. As expected Indians were thrashed by the
Aussies 0-3 in the test series and finished third among three teams in the ODI
series with a solitary win in the series. Thanks to a magical 141 by Ganguly!
Indians returned home and were again
beaten by South Africa (0-2). Their first home series loss in more than a
decade. Everything was amiss in Indian cricket. Sachin Tendulkar resigned from
captaincy just before the ODI series, lots of mediocre players were dropped
without any suitable replacements, Ganguly was selected captain of the team
despite great opposition from Mumbai and South lobby (I still remember, how in Ganguly’s
first match as regular captain, against SAF in Kochi, both Ravi Shashtri and
Sanjay Manjarekar spent their entire pre-match discussion on how Sachin
Tendulkar would thrash the Proteas as he was not bogged down by the pressure of
captaincy any more, without spending a single word on India’s new captain!
Note for SG fans: Sachin did
score lots of run in that series, 274 in fact but ended the series as the
thirst highest run getter below Gary Kirsten (281) and Sourav Ganguly (285))
Anyway, getting back to the point,
although India won that series 3-2, lots of unanswered questions still remained
and experiments went on to find the right combination for the team. After
another short ODI series in Bangladesh India went to Nairobi, to play the
inaugural ICC knockout and Indian team unleashed two future greats, Yuvraj
Singh and Zaheer Khan.
Yuvi, just 20 at that time had a quiet debut match against Kenya though did not get a chance to bat. But in the 2nd match against Australia, he gave the
glimpse of his ample talent. Coming at 90/3 Yuvi played a remarkable innings of
84 and got into a partnership of 64 runs with another Singh in the team, Robin.
Not only that, Yuvi was exceptional in the field, saved lots of singles to
derail Australia’s chase and his direct hit to run out one of the fastest men
in the cricket field Michael Bevan was the perfect cherry on the top for a
great effort.
Yuvi played another gem of an
innings against South Africa in the semis where he scored 41 and showed that
unlike other Indian youngsters he actually likes to bat in bouncy tracks, which
helps his shot making. Indian cricket fans knew India’s cricket stars for the
new millennium have started arriving.
I am not going to talk about Yuvi’s
entire career, series by series or year by year. Yes, he did find difficulty in
slow-low pitches of the sub-continent but played enough good cameos to hold on
to his place in the ODI team. He had a successful Natwest series in England and
the way he and his U-19 captain Kaif took India to a famous win in Lords’ after
going down 146/5 chasing 325, is a part of the folk-lore of Indian cricket
forever. But that was just the beginning. Yuvi would play more such innings to
make himself a permanent super hero in India’s modern fairy-tales in the
cricket field.
He continued to perform well and
played some important innings in the 2003 world cup. The one I remember is his
partnership with Rahul Dravid in the difficult chase against Pakistan. Tendulkar
gave India a very strong platform with his 98 but when he got out to Akhtar
India still needed 97 and Yuvi-Dravid partnership made sure that there was no
panic in the lower order in the chase by finishing it themselves.
2003 to 2007 was a mixed period for
him. I do remember that he delivered some match winning performances for India
especially while chasing in ODIs but he lacked consistency and too many below
20 scores were spread around his 80s and 100s. Also he was drifted into the
Indian test team and a few failures there not only made his position in the
test team unstable it also affected his ODI performance negatively. The nadir
for him and Indian team came during the 2007 world cup. Yuvi scored 47 and 83
in the first 2 matches but only 6 in the all-important match against Sri Lanka.
Indians were out of the world cup in the first round and Indian cricketers were
the most hated group of human beings in the world for next few months.
Indian cricket found some of his
credibility back in September when MS Dhoni’s young Indian team won the first
ICC T20 world cup. Yuvi was instrumental in the tournament. We all remember
what he did to Stuart
Broad in the match against England but I think his 70 of 30 balls in the
semi-final against Australia is one of the greatest T-20 innings I have ever
seen. Two world cups in bag for Yuvi and he made important contributions in
both the time.
2008 to 2011 was crazy time in
Indian cricket. Seniors like Ganguly and Dravid were slowly faded away from ODI
and test teams. IPL made his grand entry in the world cricket landscape and
Yuvraj Singh stayed as the maverick in Indian cricket. His life style outside
cricket became more of a gossip than ever. New girlfriends, new nightclubs, new
fashion statement, new controversies- Yuvraj singh became a regular name in
page 3. He kept performing in the field though but mostly in limited over
version and despite multiple comebacks could not cement his place in the Indian
test team due to low scores and injuries.
And then came the ‘Mother of any
sporting tournament’, a cricket world cup in India. The amount of hype,
excitement and buzz were nerve-racking. And a cricket-crazy (mostly
cricketer-crazy) nation was holding its
breath for more than a month to see their team victorious in the biggest of
stages in cricket, an honour which last came 28 years before and was not
observed by more than half of the Indian population as they were not even born
in 1983.
I remember what I wrote
about Yuvraj Singh on one of my FB friend’s wall just before the world cup. My
point was that, ‘ knowing Yuvraj Singh, he will either have a great world cup
or very poor world cup. He is Yuvraj Singh, he does not believe in mediocrity,
he will be in news, all the time, for good reason or may be for the bad.’
India started slowly as usual, their
batting was good but bowling remained a worry. They tied their match against
England after scoring 338 and lost to South Africa by giving away 13 runs in
the last over. Yuvi managed a hundred against West Indies but it was his slow
left arm bowling which took all the lime light especially after his 5 wicket
haul against the Ireland.
In the Quarter final India faced
Australia and Yuvi continued his tradition of playing well against the Aussies.
He took 2 wickets while bowling and scored unbeaten 57 to successfully guide
India’s chase. His expression after hitting the winning boundary is one of the
many memorable images of the world cup 2011.
In the semi-final, Yuvi missed a
first ball full toss from Wahab Riaz and got bowled but continued his good show
with the ball to get a couple of wickets.
Then came the final. India was playing
in the world cup final against neighbour Sri Lanka in Mumbai, the home of
Indian cricket. Nothing can get bigger than this. Sri Lanka batted first, got
to a challenging total of 274 thanks to a ton from Mahela. Yuvi got his
customary two wickets.
But bigger drama was waiting to
happen during India’s chase. After the fall of Virat Kohli, India’s third
wicket, the entire crowd was expecting to see Yuvraj Singh coming out of the pavilion,
but MS Dhoni again made a mockery of cricket pundits to send himself instead
and played a crucial knock of 91 to bring the world cup glory to India. Yuvraj
did come to bat after the fall of 4th wicket and remained not out when his
captain and successful partner of many a chases in last 6 year hit that
Kulasekhara delivery for a huge Six. And then the madness took its place in the
ground. The crowd became crazy, the players became over whelmed and I have
already mentioned about the hug and tears of Yuvraj Singh. I realized how
strongly he had dreamt of that moment that he could not hold his emotion to
himself.
The world cup celebrations dried
down slowly and then I read an article where Yuvraj Singh talked about how much
pressure he used to have during the world cup and how that impacted his health
with regular bout of nausea and vomiting. I told myself, it is not easy to be
an international sportsman, specially a cricketer from India and Pakistan. The
constant scrutiny, the constant hype by the press do take their toll in one’s
mental and physical health. I did not realize the bigger reason for that
sickness then, I don’t think anyone could. Not even Yuvi.
Then slowly the news of Yuvi’s
illness started making round. He did not play a single ODI after that world cup
final and also played his last test in November.
After that it was only the news of
his illness, the rare germ cell cancer which threatened to take India’s best
limited over batsman away from the game and the treatments. The chemotherapy,
the twitter update, the letter from Lance Armstrong, a bald and over-weight
Yuvraj making appearance during an IPL match; it’s all what we heard about him.
Finally the news of Yuvi starting
practice sessions was out and then Indian selectors made another most
controversial call by including him the squad for 2 T-20s against New Zealand
and World T-20 in Sri Lanka.
Today, Yuvi will make his comeback
to the international cricket. Now it’s less than 3 hours to go for the match to
be started. Will Yuvi be successful? Will he be able to take those catches,
make those flying saves which only he could do? Will his shot power and foot
movement be just like old? Time will give those answers but we will celebrate a
great comeback of genius. A real man of character who knows the meaning of
never give up and has become the role model for thousands of human being like
me who need to face tough situations many times every other day In life.
10 years ago, when Yuvi and Kaif
were taking India close to that target of 325 in the Natwest final, I remember
Harsha Bhogle’s commentary, who urged every Indian to switch on their
television sets as something wonderful was happening for Indian cricket.
Yesterday Harsha came up with this. It is a
wonderful article written straight from heart. And I quote:
I hope
Yuvraj looks at the rest of his playing career as a celebration, as a lifeline
thrown his way. I don't know if he will ever be as good as he was, if he can
get your heart racing again by the majesty of his strokeplay. But if he can
play like he belongs, that's all he needs - he will tell the world a great
story.
I have the
exactly same feelings for him. All the best champion!! Have a blast!! Hope my
article does not jinx your performance on the field.
Wanted to write a blog post myself, but couldn't. Too emotional for all that.
ReplyDeleteThanks Tapa Da for writing this. Yuvraj's life should be celebrated.
ReplyDeleteyeah... Do read the article written by Harsha. It inspired me to write my piece.
ReplyDelete