"I will rip your neck off!"- Yuvraj Singh reveals heated banter with Flintoff
Yuvraj Singh's six sixes in an over in the 2007 T20 World Cup will always remain one of the most memorable moments in Indian cricket. However, the former Indian all-rounder might not have been able to achieve the feat had it not been for Andrew Flintoff, who flared him up.
Just a few weeks before the crucial encounter between India and England, the two teams were playing an ODI at the Oval and Dimitri Mascarenhas had hit Yuvraj Singh for five sixes in a row. This was certainly playing on the mind of the then 26-year-old and he wanted to settle the scores with the Three Lions.
On the podcast '22 Yarns with Gaurav Kapur', Yuvraj Singh explained how his heated exchange of words with Flintoff helped him get fired up and hit six sixes in an over.
"I remember I hit two good boundaries off Flintoff which he obviously didn't like. He said something to me and I said something back. He told me, 'Come here I will rip your neck off'. So I said, 'You know where my bat would go'. It was quite a serious fight at that time. I just felt like I wanted to hit every ball out of the park," Yuvraj Singh revealed.
Gave a cheeky smile to Flintoff after hitting six sixes: Yuvraj Singh
Yuvraj Singh was in the zone and was determined to channel all his anger into his power-hitting. On the receiving end was a young Stuart Broad, who didn't know what was about to hit him. Yuvraj smashed six sixes off Broad and scored the fastest fifty ever in T20s off just 12 balls.
On the podcast, Yuvraj Singh gave a detailed explanation of every single six that he hit off Broad in that over.
His innings was not just crucial to proving his own mettle, but proved to have a galvanizing effect on India's T20 World Cup win.
"Luckily, the first ball I hit (off Broad) went out of the park. The second ball I hit, went in the crowd. Third ball I hit over point, where I hadn't even hit a boundary in my career. Collingwood came and told Broad to keep bowling yorkers to me outside off-stump because the off-side was big. But Broad thought of bowling into my legs. So when he decided to do that, I knew he was in trouble. The fifth ball hit the toe of my bat, it was a small boundary that went over Flintoff. Sixth ball I knew he has to bowl a yorker. So I was ready to hit it straight and it was in my arc. My first look was to Flintoff, giving him a cheeky smile," Yuvraj concluded.
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