Punjab Cricket Secretary asks Yuvraj Singh to come out of retirement
Former India all-rounder Yuvraj Singh has been asked to come out of retirement and play domestic cricket for his state by Punjab Cricket Secretary Puneet Bali. Yuvraj Singh had called time on his cricketing career last year after having a poor IPL 2019 season.
Bali has not heard back from Yuvraj Singh, and it is expected that the 38-year-old southpaw will need clearance from the BCCI to represent Punjab in the domestic season.
This is because the Indian players have to announce their retirement to receive NOCs from the BCCI for playing in overseas leagues and Yuvraj Singh has already played in two foreign leagues - Global T20 Canada and Abu Dhabi T10 League.
Bali believes that Yuvraj Singh's experience will be handy for many young Punjab players, and his mentoring will help them potentially develop into stars. Punjab have recently lost many of their dependable players like Manan Vohra and Barinder Sran, who qualified to play for Chandigarh two seasons ago.
"Over the last couple of seasons, we've lost players to other states, many of our players to Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh and Himachal. So we felt a player of Yuvraj's experience and calibre could lend a lot of value and inspire the youngsters," Bali was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.
Yuvraj Singh mentored some of Punjab's youngsters last month
Yuvraj Singh spent some time last month watching over players like Shubman Gill, Prabhsimran Singh, Anmolpreet Singh, Abhishek Sharma and Harpreet Brar. They were training at PCA's new upcoming international stadium at Mullanpur near Chandigarh.
Bali believes that such kind of mentoring from Yuvraj Singh would really come in handy for the young players, and he is also fine with Yuvraj choosing to only play limited-overs cricket for Punjab.
"The request I made was for him to consider playing all formats. But if he comes back to and says, he's available only for limited-overs cricket, for some reason, that will be fine too. I'm looking forward to hear from him soon. But as such, he's been working hard with the boys," Bali said.
Whether or not Yuvraj Singh will rejoin the Punjab domestic team as a player will be something that will only be answered in time. But one thing is for sure that his tips will have a significant impact on the youngsters playing the game.