India's accidental match-winner

Divyansh Peswani

India's accidental match-winner

Almost every cricketing legend has a tale or two about Yuvraj Singh. The young boy from Chandigarh had humble beginnings and was almost forced into the game that he went on to dominate for more than a decade.

A young Yuvraj Singh leaving a mark on international cricket. Image credits: News18

The buzz about Yuvraj and his cricketing prowess broke out after his stellar performance in the 1999 Ranji game between Bihar and Punjab. When Bihar got out for 357, the left-hander scored 358 runs himself. After a dominating performance in the 1999 Ranji season and winning the U-19 World Cup under Mohammad Kaif, the 19-year-old got his maiden international call-up.

He was quick to assert dominance as in only his third ODI game, against undisputedly the world’s best cricketing side Australia, he scored 84 off 80 deliveries. That had set the track for some really memorable years for the Indian cricket team.

Yuvraj was a match-winner, in the truest sense of the term. On countless occasions had the titan saved India from batting collapses and also played pertinent knocks at a rather quick rate to chase down totals. His bowling ability was always a positive, given the number of left-arm spinners existed at the time.

His first big breakthrough win was the final of the 2002 NatWest trophy, when his 121-run partnership with Kaif for the 6th wicket helped India chase down a mammoth total of 325. He made a valuable contribution in the series opener as well, scoring 64* and taking 3/39.

If you were to graph out Yuvraj’s performance over the year’s (based on statistics), it would be a bumpy ride. His careers saw several highs and lows where instances of supreme batting would be followed by a string of complete lack of form. This saw him getting dropped from the XI several times, but also win Player of the Series award 7 times in ODI cricket; joint second-highest by an Indian.

The position at which he played was a precarious one, though there wasn’t a like-for-like replacement for him, India would seek to make up for it in the aggregate with a stronger top-order and a proper bowler in the lineup. His exploits in Test cricket weren’t one to remember, but he was a part of the historic test-series win India got over New Zealand in 2009.

The 2011 World Cup

Leading up to the World Cup, Yuvraj was in decent touch with the bat. He started the campaign off really well and it ended up being one of the most historic and memorable individual performances in a Cricket World Cup. Yuvraj was in impeccable touch, both with the bat and the ball, as he scored 362 runs at an average of 90.25 and picked up 15 wickets. He won the Man of the Match award on 4 occasions, and smashed through several records. His campaign comprised 4 fifties and a hundred with his most important knock being a clinical 57-run innings against Australia in the quarter final.

We also saw him play the Champions Trophy in 2017 where he scored an impressive fifty against Pakistan in the league stages. Post that, he failed to clear the YO-YO fitness test, which is a mandate imposed by the BCCI, and that was really the last nail in the coffin.

In 2019, Yuvraj announced his retirement from international cricket. With over 400 international games, 10,000+ runs and a 150 wickets, Yuvraj Singh is remembered as one of the most vital Indian cricketers of the era and had set new standards for batting all-rounders across the globe.

The world was only beginning to get over his magical performance when things took a turn for the worse. Yuvraj was diagnosed with cancer in his left lung and left for treatment immediately after the World Cup. Sources tell that he knew of his condition and chose to stay and play the World Cup, thus postponing his treatment. Images of him coughing out blood between his innings’ never fail to give me goosebumps.

After his cancer went into remission, Yuvraj sought to make a return in the Indian XI and was picked for the 2012 T20 World Cup. What followed were occasional performances in an otherwise lukewarm couple of years. It was in that phase when he scored 11 in 21 balls in the 2014 World Cup final, costing India the game. He could never really get back in tune with his from pre-cancer and was seen to be on and off India’s bench.

One last hoorah

In 2017, he was picked for the home ODI series against England. The campaign was, overall, a high-scoring affair and in the second ODI, he scored a career-best 150 off just 127 deliveries.