Vengsarkar, who has been observing Yuvi from his early days, says, ‘I watched him get a century at Lahore and some of the Pakistan old-timers who had played against Gary Sobers compared him to Sobers. A very huge compliment.’
If you compare the footage, Yuvi matches Sobers shot for shot. Power combined with timing, the loft right out of the ground or the flick bisecting the field and racing to the boundary, Yuvi gives spectators something to cheer about. And they expect him to score at a brisk pace all the time. But even stroke makers like Sobers or Viv Richards, who had all the shots in the world, struggled at times.
The difference between those two and Yuvi is that they didn’t play as many one-dayers as Yuvi has. Though the basics remain the same, a batsman has to change his approach and also his mindset. It requires a lot of adjustments for a stroke player. Perhaps Yuvi found it difficult. Perhaps, when the situation became the master and the player had to shift gears, he was not up to making the change. Besides, Yuvi had not even played Tests consistently, being in and out of the team, sometimes unjustifiably so.
The Sri Lanka tour of 2010 started well for Yuvi. He scored a superb 118 in a three-day game against Board President’s XI. He clobbered the bowlers with 6 sixes and 11 fours. In the first Test, he scored 62 when India was struggling. He was preparing for the second Test when he fell ill with dengue. And Suresh Raina got a chance to make his Test debut. Raina scored a hundred. Yuvi was declared fit for the third Test, but he wasn’t selected. That was a big setback for him.
Raina may have scored a hundred but Yuvi was fit and in form and he should have been brought back into the team. That day it dawned on Yuvi that he could never again take anything for granted. His self-belief was shaken. Too much had happened to him over the years. And how long could a person keep his self-belief intact when it looked like the gods were plotting against him?
Here was a player in smashing good form, right from the day he set foot in Sri Lanka, massacring the bowling at will and playing brilliantly even when the rest of the team was struggling, and yet he lost his place despite being fully fit. Any cricketer would want to know the logic behind such an exclusion, and even with the understanding that it is a team sport, no one would like to be treated so shabbily. Yuvi was reportedly not even informed of his exclusion beforehand. But then, we all know that such things happen in Indian cricket.
As those travelling with the Indian team have observed, these days it boils down to the captain-player relationship, and which player enjoys the captain’s confidence. The decision-making and body language of Dhoni always indicated that though he would love to have Yuvi in the team, for some reason he preferred Raina.
The list of instances and explanations goes on, and Yuvi’s Test career remains an enigma. ‘It’s like the gods are saying, No, Yuvraj, you can’t play Test matches,’ says his mother.
Are we banking too much on fate in the story of Yuvraj Singh? Can fate indeed be so vindictive? Can a fighter like Yuvi be swept away so easily, carried away on the waves like a sea shell?
How does a cricketer go from strength to strength in one format while being no good in another format of the same game? Are the formats more different than we assume them to be? Do we forget that cricket is not all about the bowler bowling and the batsmen hitting the ball? That the mind is the most vital driving force in the game, and different formats mean a different mindset, different in application, different in attitude?
Perhaps it wasn’t about fate, opportunities or unfair decisions. Maybe the problem lay within Yuvi – not his talent, because that has never been in doubt. What has always been interesting is the way Yuvi deals with his talent, and his attitude.
Was there a mental game being played between Yuvi the cricketer and Yuvi the person?
Aunshuman Gaekwad was the coach of the Indian team when Yuvi first played for India in the ICC Championship in Nairobi. ‘When I saw Yuvi first, he impressed me with his talent. He was eighteen then. In my strategy, I was looking for a left-hand batsman who could come in at number six and attack when it mattered in the fifty-over game. He was not only a very good batsman, but also a brilliant fielder. I told him to bowl more in the nets, which he did. He was very serious about the game, especially while fielding practice. Even though he was a junior, he would push seniors to go for the ball or a catch. The Nairobi grounds aren’t big. I needed a batsman to clear infield and a fielder to stop boundaries. Yuvi did that admirably. I remember he scored 84 against the likes of McGrath and Brett Lee and hit them out of the field. That day a top star was born for Indian cricket.
‘Once, during the tournament, he rushed to the dressing room and was in terrible pain as he just couldn’t urinate. We tried everything, but nothing worked. Eventually, a local doctor treated him and the next moment he was on the ground. This was the level of his commitment.’
Perhaps Yuvi’s flamboyant, go-getter attitude, which is often considered the main reason for his success in ODIs, is the biggest reason for his failure in Tests.
Balwinder Singh Sandhu remembers Yuvi the sixteen-year-old boy who, when corrected, practised the lofted shot diligently. But six years later, he found Yuvi a changed man. ‘When I met him at the NCA in 2003,’ says Sandhu, ‘his ego was big. The NCA pitch had moisture and yet he kept playing and missing his off drive. I told him that on such pitches, he must not reach for the ball and must let the ball come to him. To defy me, he kept trying the same thing. Eventually, I told the fast bowlers to hit him in the ribcage so that he would go on the backfoot. He was hit by Harvinder Singh.’
Sandhu believes that Yuvi should have tightened his defence when he was young. ‘He didn’t, and he was exposed in the longer format of the game. He says that the difference between Viv Richards and Yuvi is that Viv wasn’t arrogant when it came to the game. Viv played to his strengths. Yuvi didn’t bother about the finer technicalities when the going was good.
‘Yuvi’s conviction and confidence that had taken him so far were starting to look like arrogance to many. He also seemed unnecessarily adamant.’
At the same time, younger players like Rohit Sharma speak about how compassionate Yuvi can be. Says Sharma, ‘Yuvi really loves me. When the team for the 2011 World Cup was announced, I wasn’t in the team. Naturally, I was disappointed. The moment he came to know, he came to my room and told me to get ready. He took me out for dinner and like an elder brother told me, “Look, such things will keep happening in cricket, but never show disappointment. If you have a dream of playing for India for a long time, then learn to fight. You have terrific talent and you will succeed. When it happened to me in the 2003 World Cup, it was Sachin who consoled me. Now I am telling you what Sachin told me.”
‘When he was dropped against West Indies and I replaced him, I was the first one to call him and I repeated what he had told me, but he sounded very disappointed. I must say he is a genuine friend.’
Says Kiran More, ‘Yuvi is such a player that I will go miles to watch him bat. Amazingly talented, had he stayed focussed and concentrated on his game, he would have been more successful in Tests.’
More was the Chairman of the selection committee in 2004, and he remembers Yuvi telling him that he wanted to open the innings against Australia at Chennai in the second Test. He had batted in the middle order in the first Test at Bangalore. Says More, ‘I told him that since he hadn’t even opened for his state, he would be under pressure facing the very good attack of Australia, but apparently someone in the team had persuaded him to do it. My job was to advise him, but he wasn’t convinced. He opened, and failed miserably. He talked to me later and admitted that he wanted to open simply because he wasn’t getting a chance. It was a hard lesson he learnt.’
Yuvi’s inability to come good in Tests did not remain a personal problem. It had become a point to ponder for all the critics of the game. Many greats tried to help him. A few, like More and Sandhu, seem to have taught Yuvi a lesson or two about the fundamental issues that he appeared to have with his batting and att
itude. Somehow all this guidance did not have an effect on him, and he made the same errors again and again. He did learn, but the learning was short-lived and the old Yuvi always outgrew and overshadowed the new learning.
This had been his failing right from the start. Vikram Rathore, former Indian opener and Punjab captain, remembers an incident that took place in March 2002 at Faridabad. ‘I think he had been dropped from the Indian team and had come down to Faridabad to play the Duleep Trophy against South Zone. The pitch was slow and low and he came to bat at number three. I was at the other end. Left-arm spinner Sriram was bowling. They had a silly point and forward short leg. After every over, Yuvi said to me, “Paaji, I will clear the long on”. I kept telling him not to be stupid. This went on for some overs. When he kept telling me the same thing, I asked him, “Yuvi, how many innings have you played this year?” He replied, “Around twenty.” Then I asked him how many times he had got out in the deep and how many times at close in. He said he had got out many times in the deep but rarely when he was defending. I told him that he had answered my question. He realized the truth of the situation then, rethought his attitude, and scored a double hundred in that match.’
There are some things we will never figure out. What exactly went wrong with Yuvi? Why is it that one of our most talented cricketers could not establish himself in the Test team?
For Yuvi, too, it was a mystery and it left him feeling unhappy and frustrated.
But some good came out of all this. The constant waiting made Yuvi mentally stronger. Motivational autobiographies became staple reading for him, and they had the desired effect. His utterances became more reasoned. He began to articulate his point of view patiently, without any trace of impatience.
It didn’t take long, though, for his volatile self to surface, especially when he sensed that he might miss out on captaincy. And especially because it was Vengsarkar, the chairman of the selection committee, who chose Mahendra Singh Dhoni over him.
Whatever the reasons for this, Yuvi realized that being in the Test team was a distant dream, but now even his place in the ODI team could come under threat in the upcoming 2011 World Cup.
He changed his approach to the game and began bowling more in the nets, something he had not done earlier. It was clear that he wanted to impress upon the team that he was capable of not only bowling economically but being effective in the middle overs.
Yuvi’s marked improvement as a bowler gave the team management the luxury of having a genuine all-rounder. His value as a great finisher was always known, but when his pie chucker deliveries began to fox batsmen, there was no way he could be dropped. And it was when Yuvi realized that the going was good that he got into the frame of mind to make it even better.
Before the 2011 World Cup, Yuvi wasn’t sure of getting all the games but he worked hard on his bowling, became a percentage cricketer and more importantly, played to what the situation demanded. His preparation for the biggest stage of all had started in earnest.
Chapter Four
Shabnam Singh
A MOTHER SPEAKS
Shabnam Singh, Yuvi’s mother, has seen a lot in life. She gave birth to a son who could not be hers. From the moment of his birth, her husband decided his fate. For Shabnam, every hour that her husband spent making Yuvi a cricketer was an hour lost with her son. In her husband’s pursuit of his dream, her child was lost to her. Although she grieved, she could do nothing but watch him undergo the rigorous training his father put him through every day. She prayed and hoped that the day would come soon when her son reached the pinnacle that he was being trained for, so that the regimen could end.
It did, and Yuvi became a cricketer of the highest order. But perhaps it is in the nature of life to never let people be. Yuvi’s career fluctuated dramatically. He earned a name for himself as a world-class one-day player, but he was not content with that. Both he and his parents believed that to be a great cricketer one had to make a mark as a Test player. And that was one thing that continued to elude him. But through it all, his mother stood by him. She celebrated his success, felt his pain, shared his disappointment.
Yuvi’s decade-long career as a member of the Indian cricket team was not devoid of distress. Injury and form were two strange friends he had. The first presented itself at unexpected moments, and the second disappeared suddenly, without warning. The year before the World Cup was one of the worst for Yuvi as a cricketer, dogged as he was by injuries.
Says Shabnam, ‘It was just one injury after another. Even on his birthday in 2010 he broke a finger; he had three injuries on the hand in one year. All the time, he was struggling with injuries. What happens is that you become defensive, and then people started saying, “Oh, he is not standing [fielding] there, he is not standing here.” What do you expect? Obviously it affects your psychology. You feel that you are going to get injured again. But he fielded in his normal position in the World Cup. In Sri Lanka he was doing so well, getting a hundred in the practice match and a half-century in the next match. He couldn’t play the one after that because he got dengue. Raina played and made a hundred and in the next match, Yuvi had to sit out. I think he went through a really miserable time then. Everyone tells him he is so talented, and then he feels frustrated that he can’t cement his place in the Test side. He has just been very unlucky and something or the other always goes wrong when he is playing a Test match. In ODIs, everything falls into place. But during Tests, it’s like God says, No, you can’t be playing Test matches now. That’s what we feel. So he has to accept it, and when the opportunity comes, he should take it.’
Shabnam’s heart obviously aches when she hears unfair criticism of her son. ‘Yes, he could never cement his place as a Test player. But that doesn’t mean that he was taking things lightly. One thing Yuvi really hates is being a loser. Whether it is table tennis, cricket, hockey or snooker, if you defeat him, he’ll practise ten times harder in a day and make sure that he comes back. That is the kind of fighting spirit he has. Being dropped from the side becomes a motivation for him. He works harder, reads books. He tells himself, I’m good and I will come back, and that is how he pushes himself. He was always focussed on cricket. Yes, of course it hurts a child when his parents are separated, but his focus never wavered because he knew he had to play.’
One thing Yuvi has never shirked is sheer hard work, says his mother. She recalls the time when he hurt himself while playing kho-kho. ‘I remember it was 28 October. He went for an acupuncture session and 40-50 needles pierced his fingers each time. The doctor said he would cure him but he had to go to him for 20-25 days. Yuvi said he couldn’t take so much pain, but he did. It was the most horrifying experience, but he went through it and came back to play after two and a half months.’
Once, while on tour, Yuvi suffered a ligament tear in the knee, and the doctor told him to exercise in water. He couldn’t find a heated or covered pool so he went to an open-air pool in the December cold. Perhaps this capacity to endure pain was the result of the rigorous training he had at the hands of his father all through his childhood. ‘I didn’t want to toughen him up that much. It was his father,’ Shabnam says. ‘On his Ranji debut, Yuvi was out for a duck and his world shattered. The next time he went to play a game, he got jaundice and was dropped. Then they didn’t want him to play as he was too young to play the Ranji trophy. So he never got a proper game till he played the U-19 and got the man of the series in the U-19 World Cup. That is how he got a place in the Indian team.’
The media and the public have been very harsh on her son, says Shabnam. ‘Even when he was working hard for a comeback, the media portrayed what they wanted to portray. If he was just sitting and talking to a girl for a second, that picture would be all over and people would think, Oh, he’s only talking to girls. They didn’t see the hours of hard work he put in; the minute of relaxation was all they mentioned. It is Yuvi’s passion to play for the country, and he puts in the same effort whether he is in the team or out of it. I remember, aft
er losing the 2007 World Cup, Yuvi, Harbhajan and I had to take a flight to Delhi. We overheard two boys at the airport remarking, “Put Yuvi and Harbhajan together. Let’s lock them in a room and don’t let them go out.” I remember Bhajji was very upset. I said to him, How does it matter? Now, after the World Cup victory, when Yuvi walks anywhere, people start clapping. This is not fair to cricketers.’
It is true that we fans are fickle. It’s almost as if our support for cricket comes with a precondition, the assumption that since we support them, we have an equal right to assault them if they don’t perform. This kind of support is not love but a mere barter. ‘I scream for you, you’d better hit a six.’ What is a cricketer supposed to feel about this? Can he ever feel any affection for such devotees who are prepared to kill their god if their prayers aren’t answered?
‘It doesn’t get to him any longer,’ says Shabnam. ‘With
Time, he has become more mature. But everybody likes being praised and nobody likes being insulted in public. Playing for the country is a matter of pride. You give your blood, sweat and tears on the ground. It takes a stupid person a single second to make a comment. They don’t realize what they are saying. Anyway, cricketers have to take it in their stride.’
Shabnam remembers the stress on the players during the 2011 World Cup. ‘The atmosphere was so stressful, so heavy. The players were just not talking to anybody. You couldn’t talk about a sneeze at that time. If you were not well, it wasn’t taken into consideration. It was all about winning.’
That’s why Yuvi’s persistent cough and vomiting passed off as a minor problem. He couldn’t possibly have made a fuss about it.
Until it became impossible to deny the truth. Of cancer.
Shabnam recalls the horror of the early days. ‘It was 23 May 2011 and we had gone for a regular check-up. The X-ray showed a black thing sitting over Yuvi’s lungs. A piece of flesh that swelled up when he ran and affected his lung power and his breathing.’
Yuvi Page 4