There’s always something about Yuvraj Singh, powerful & vulnerable

There was something about watching Yuvraj Singh that was mostly powerful and joyous, confident and compelling, passionate and proud. And, paradoxically, at times, fragile and riddled with doubt. Yes, there was something very alluringly human about the lovable rascal at the batting crease that drew many a heart to him and the entertainment he rolled out.

The left-hander and his accomplices, aggression and vulnerability, will not be visibly evident any longer as he announced his retirement in Mumbai on Monday. The man who beat cancer and returned to internatonal cricket made a short speech to the media, carefylly couching his emotions and leaving everyone else around him to deal with his fading away from cricket’s centrestage.

To be sure, we know that all beautiful journeys have an end and that someday we will have to sit down and write about an athlete’s decision to call it a day and move on. But some athletes have a knack of making this a very emotional and difficult task. How can one focus on writing when there is a lump in the throat?

Of course, one way of dealing with it is to just let the whole idea sink in and wait for the morning after when the emotions have calmed down just that bit. Truth be told, they show no signs of settling down. Even without having seen him in India colours for two years now and even while known that his sell-by date was at hand, it has been hard to bring oneself to write on his swansong.

Yuvraj Singh’s arrival on the international scene coincided with the first wave of dot coms in India. Unlike many of those enterprises which vanished without trace, Yuvraj Singh outlasted them with his resilience and his unmatched flair on the cricket field. It is the toll that time has taken on his body – and not his spirit – that has seen him make the decision to hang up his boots.

He remained a product of the times and not a throwback to the typecast traditional cricketer who would be on guard all the time and careful about the image he projected in public domain. It did not matter to him what anyone else thought so long as he had the respect and affection of his team-mates. And it is obvious that each one of them adored him for his skills and his charming character.

From the time he announced his entry in cricket’s elite competition with a classy half century against Australia in the ICC Knock-Out tournament in Kenya, he has held the fans in thrall. The remarkable ease with which he would dismiss the ball to the fence was a hallmark. It would drive captains to scratch their heads about where to place the fielders.

It also made many ask why he did not take that talent to Test cricket as well with as much success. Of course, he scored Test hundreds against Pakistan in Lahore, Karachi and Bangalore. But without a certain place in the XI, he found it hard to embrace the consistency that he found in one-day internationals.

Back in October 2004, he was asked to open the innings with Virender Sehwag in a Test against Australia in Chennai. The pair was unbeaten on the fourth evening with India still needing 210 runs to win.  We would never know how he would have fared as an opening batsman in Test cricket as torrential rain lashed Chennai overnight and not a ball could be bowled on the last day.

It was never going to be easy to break into a middle-order that had batsmen like Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman. And when either Ganguly or Laxman sat out with injury, Yuvraj would always know that he was but a stop-gap in the XI and would have to make way when the seniors returned to the side.

Yet, there have been many memories that he left for his fans. The century-stand with Mohammed Kaif to help India pinch the NatWest Trophy from under England’s nose at Lord’s in 2002 and the three catches that he claimed, including two outrageously spectacular ones, against South Africa in the ICC Champions Trophy that year in Colombo were early milestones.

The six sixes in an over in the ICC World Twent20 and his outstanding all-round show in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 will be etched in our minds for time to come. There have been few cricketers who have enjoyed their game and radiated that joy through the span of their careers to the spectators like he has.

At a personal level, I was delighted when he was named man of the tournament in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. For, in January, I picked him ahead of the likes of Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and Suresh Raina, Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh as well as Mahendra Singh Dhoni as India’s stand-out performer in the big-ticket event.

He had spent some time outside the Indian dressing room and that had allowed him to introspect and return a wiser person. His ability to hold the middle-order together or provide the thrust at the finish as well as his 10 economical overs of left-arm spin made me plump for the left-hander. True to that assessment, he came up with scores and bowling performances to power India to victory.

It is wonderful that before announcing his retirement, Yuvraj Singh made peace with his father, former Test cricketer Yograj Singh, with a heart-to-heart conversation over a couple of days in Chandigarh. It was at the media gathering in Mumbai that Yuvraj Singh revealed how much he hated cricket being thrust upon him by his father, who he referred to as Dragon Singh.

Yuvraj Singh will be remembered as legends are because he is not just someone who loves life so dearly and beat cancer to be an inspiration beyond the cricket field but also a superb ambassador for the game that he may have hated in the beginning but came to love with all his heart. Take a bow, champion, Yuvraj Singh.