What we learnt in 10 years, Kohli learnt it in 3 years: Yuvraj Singh

Veteran Indian batsman Yuvraj Singh has made it a habit to be the most iconic comeback player everytime he makes it to the Indian team. He has had a roller coaster of a career ever since making his debut way back in 2000. After 17 years of absolute ups and downs in his cricket life, the southpaw recently reflected back at the times he felt let down and the moments that inspired him to grow stronger. Yuvraj Singh had an in-depth conversation with Wisden India wherein he spoke at length about his most recent comeback and had words of praise for skipper Virat Kohli.

He was the player of the tournament for India when the national side lifted the ICC World Cup in 2011. However, soon after the tournament, he was diagnosed with cancer. It was a long fought battle with the disease before he mustered his way back to the national side. A refurbished Yuvraj was a part of the Indian team in the 2014 ICC World T20.

Things were not so good for him this time around though. An excruciatingly slow know of 11 runs off 21 balls in the finals against Sri Lanka saw the critics come hard at him. Yuvraj noted that time to be a tricky phase as nothing got right for him. But he credited those moments for shaping the calm Yuvraj Singh that he is today.

“After the T20 World Cup final (in Mirpur), nothing was going right for me. I was not getting too many runs in domestic cricket also and I was out of the side. I just focussed, I took some time away from the game. I was seeing Hazel (Keech, to whom he got married last November) at that time and I focussed on the other side of my life. Just spending time with her, enjoying life, got engaged at that time,” quoted Yuvraj.

“I think focusing on my life brought me back into the rhythm of playing. You are being disciplined, training hard, eating the right food and having happiness. Finding happiness in my life was a very big reason for me to come back and play for India again. When you are playing for India, you always feel that you belong there. And suddenly I was not there. I needed to find my life without playing for India, without playing cricket because eventually, after a few years, I am going to stop doing that. And you have to move on and you have to live your life. I focused on that — leading my life, having a life of my own outside of cricket. It helped me in getting back to the game,” he added further.

Yuvraj’s most recent comeback was against England in the home series earlier this year. The hard-hitting batsman showed why he is still regarded as one of the cleanest hitters of the cricket ball. Yuvraj smacked a whirlwind 150 at Cuttack in an ODI fixture in the series. Despite the marathon knock, Yuvi chose to silently acknowledge the crowds.

Citing reasons for the same and reflecting back on the innings, he quoted, “I needed to prove it to myself, rather than to prove it to the world, you know. I needed to prove to myself that I still have it in me, I still can deliver in the way I used to deliver in the past. It was more proving it to myself and the battle within — that I can still do the impossible. That was the belief I had and it actually came true with all the hard work I put in and the belief I had maintained over the last three years. It was more of an inner battle in terms of doing it again in life — coming a long way with my health issues and when people thought my cricket is over.”

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He also had a few words of praise for skipper Virat Kohli. He rightly remarked that Kohli has grown in stature in very quick time. He is one of the leading modern day players who knows how to raise the performance bar each time he steps on the field.

Praising Kohli, Yuvraj Singh said, “Virat Kohli is someone who has always raised the bar. He is the next generation player in raising the bar higher. He is definitely the most exceptional batsman we have in the times now. He is someone who changed very quickly and adapted to Test cricket quicker than me. What we learnt in a span of 10 years, he learnt in a span of 3-4 years.”