What Yuvraj Singh meant to 90s cricket fans
It's an ICC limited-over event's final. It's what he lives for. The 2014 World T20 final. But, you could see the helplessness in his eyes. The helplessness he felt at the crease. The pain of neither being able to unleash his bat swing on the ball nor getting dismissed.
During his retirement speech, he himself acknowledged that it was his worst day in life and was so shattering that he felt his career was over as Yuvraj's struggles ended up costing India the game. For someone whose career, and life, has seen the most spectacular highs and lows, that shows what performing for the team meant to him. And yet there were people who threw stones at his house and attacked him mercilessly left, right and center, conveniently ignoring the countless times he was "the man".
If Dada taught us how to win at home and abroad, Yuvi taught us that we can win from any situation. In a team full of legendary classy greats of modern cricket, he was the unabashed party-loving human you could relate and look up to.
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The passion, aggression and an attitude of giving it all on the field that he and his contemporaries brought to the team, laid the foundations to the best cricket team across formats we see today. For all the class and grace in their batting ranks, India lacked that swashbuckling hitter of the ball who can score quickfire runs to make a fighting total a winning total. Looking up his stats, one might err to conclude a career of just 14 tons in over 300 internationals is a below average return. But the value of each of those 8700 runs can't be fully encapsulated in the stats.
He was not the most dependable in the team, but if India had to win a tight one, he had to contribute. The 2002 NatWest series gave the world an early glimpse of what to expect from him, he might not have been the most gifted or technically sound batsman in the team, but that never-say-die attitude to fight till the last ball gave a new identity to Indian cricket.
Glittering fielder
But perhaps more important than the heroic stand Yuvraj and Mohammed Kaif put up up in that final was the shift they put day in day out at covers and point. You knew the ball was getting caught irrespective of pace, height or angle the ball was coming at. A highlight reel of their fielding prowess, at a time when India was a distant second best compared to the rest of the giants, will make even Jadeja and Kohli proud. It brought about a reckoning in the Indian setup towards an important facet of the modern game.
A winner at the biggest stage
Most people fondly remember the 6 sixes he hit off Stuart Broad in 2007, but more important and incredible was his innings a match later against Australia. His 30-ball 70 against the 3-time World Champions and one of the most feared bowling attacks was a catalyst for the final charge.
His whole career can be summed up by the ease with which he effortlessly flicked Brett Lee for a 119-m long six, caressing everything life threw at him with a trademark nonchalance. Fast-forward to the other World Cup, the 2011 one. Would India have won the Cup without him? We may never know the answer for sure, but most probably not.
But it would have been much more difficult. A player who performed better when the pressure was on and when it mattered the most. His all-round display against the 3-time defending champions to knock them out was incredible. His breakdown at the end of the final encapsulated what all the Indians felt after the World Cup win. For a nation obsessed with cricket, it had to wait 28 years for its crowning glory to come back and that too on home soil.
He had a spectacular World Cup and perhaps will continue to be one of the finest all-round individual World Cup performances for a long long time. And like his career till then, each high came with an equally crushing low. The news of his cancer sent shock-waves around the country still in the euphoria of that World Cup win. The player that everyone loved was fighting for life. His return to the field after an extremely difficult treatment regimen and then going on to score his highest ever ODI total, 150* against England, will continue to be inspiration for several other people diagnosed with the dreaded disease.
Intangible value
But most people remember these bits, these highlights. What most people forget is the excitement and thrill he brought in each Indian when he came out to bat. Whether it were his several successful stands with MS Dhoni or him getting the team over the line with Suresh Raina countless times, you felt we were never out of the match till he was there.
That premonition that the ball will go out of the park when a spinner was in his run-up and that trademark high bat swing was coming down was trademark Yuvraj. There might be several Gayle and Pollards out there, but the mystique and aura attached to his hitting and timing can only perhaps be compared to that of de Villiers.
If only he had been on the right side of the Board and the selectors, he might have played a lot more. He upheld what he stood for his entire career and reflected it even in the way he went out. His rejection of a farewell match in the event of failing a fitness test shows how nothing he has achieved or done has come easy or with favors; Yuvi had worked hard to achieve every single heart he has won. But even had he achieved a lot more, none of those achievements would have mattered because what he did in the first decade of his career with his teammates was the biggest thing to happen to Indian cricket. India winning against the best wasn't a surprise anymore, India losing was. That was an achievement that owes itself to Yuvraj and Co.