Match Referee had checked my bat after T20 World Cup 2007 semi-final against Australia: Yuvraj Singh

After the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid pulled out of the inaugural T20 World Cup in 2007, not many had hopes of team India doing well. MS Dhoni was named the skipper of a young side. India had only played a solitary T20 International going into the tournament and had no experience. But it was Yuvraj Singh’s six sixes which lit up the tournament and forced everyone to take India seriously in the format.

The southpaw’s heroics came against England as he hit smacked Stuart Broad for six sixes in an over after an altercation with Andrew Flintoff. It was also a must-win game for India and though he didn’t play the next game against South Africa, Yuvraj played a match-winning knock of 70 runs off just 30 deliveries against Australia in the semi-final.

However, in a live Instagram interaction with India Today, Yuvraj Singh revealed an interesting incident on Saturday. He said that a lot of doubts were raised about his bat after his heroics against England and Australia. Rather the then Australia coach had also checked his bat and had doubted the presence of fibre behind his bat asking if it was legal.

Yuvraj Singh also informed that eventually the match referee checked his bat as well. “The Australian coach at that time came to me and had asked if there was a fibre behind my bat and asked if it was legal. Has the match referee checked it? So I told him to get it checked. Even Gilchrist asked me like who used to make our bats. So match referee had also checked my bat,” he said.

That bat was special for me, says Yuvraj Singh

However, the 38-year-old has many fond memories of playing with that bat as India became the first ever team to win the T20 World Cup due to his heroics. Moreover, Yuvraj Singh also revealed that the bat he used in 2011 World Cup is also very special to him. Apart from picking 15 wickets, the southpaw had also scored 362 runs in eight innings at an average of 90.50 with four fifties and one century and won the Man of the tournament award.

“But honestly, that bat was very special for me. I have never played with a bat like that. That one and the 2011 World Cup bat, there were special,” Yuvraj added.