Stats: Yuvraj Singh's slowest fifties in T20 cricket

Yuvraj Singh has scored the second slowest half-century in his T20 career in the ongoing Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 zonal league match against Delhi. The veteran played a knock of 50* off 40 deliveries with 4 fours and a solitary. He struggled to up the ante in the death overs as Punjab could only add 32 runs in the last four overs. However, this is not the first time when Yuvi has struggled in the shortest format as the going has gotten tough for him before even at the international level.

The slowest fifty by Yuvraj Singh in his overall T20 career so far is off 41 deliveries also in the same tournament a couple of years ago. In the Indian Premier League (IPL) too he has endured tough times in the middle as his slowest in the tournament is also off 40 deliveries for Delhi Daredevils against Mumbai Indians in 2015. While playing for the now-defunct Pune Warriors franchise he had scored a 39-ball half century against Chennai Super Kings almost seven years ago.

Slowest fifties of Yuvi

Yuvi struggled in T20Is as well

While his struggles in the T20 leagues are quite visible, he has also failed to accelerate the scoring rate playing for India. He has taken 37 balls couple of times to cross the 50-run mark. Once in 2009 at Lord’s against Windies when he also went on to 67 off 43 deliveries and then against Australia in Dhaka during the ICC World T20 2014. The sixer king of India is currently striving hard to come back into the national side. Though his current knock bodes him well as far as his form is concerned, it doesn’t seem to be enough for his team’s cause.

Meanwhile, Punjab posted a decent score of 170 runs while batting first against Delhi on the back of Manan Vohra’s 50-ball 74-run knock. In response, Delhi came ever so close on the back of a fighting half-century from Gautam Gambhir, but lost by just 2 runs. Though it could be argued that Yuvraj’s innings ended in a winning cause for his team as opposed to Gambhir’s as both strangely played slowly in the game.