Yuvraj Singh: A princely romance!

When he scored the 100^th run at the Barabati Stadium, Cuttack, in the second ODI between India and England, you could see his eyes welling up, you could imagine a few emotions choking him. He holds his arms aloft, looks skywards and thumps his chest with the handle of his bat.

For a man who is probably making his last comeback into the Indian team despite intense criticism for his selection from many corners, for a man who has battled cancer, for a man who had a lot to prove and for a man who is probably in the team because of the weight of his 28-year old superstar skipper, his celebrations were not over the top. But, they also told you something about the evolution of a man who probably has, in the true sense of the word, seen it all.

Yuvraj Singh. You often wonder why he commands that cult following. Numbers will tell you part of the story, but not the entire one. The entire story is way too big to be encompassed in petty numbers, way too colossal to be narrated in terms of performances, awards, runs, wickets, all of which he has and more!

More than just numbers on a scorecard

To understand Yuvi’s super-stardom, you have to go back all the way to 2000, the new millennium turning a new chapter in Indian cricket under Sourav Ganguly, in the aftermath of the match-fixing scandals and a general mediocrity in performances. One of the first of India’s new-gen ODI players, Yuvraj made his debut as a teenager 17 years back, arriving like a bang on the scene, smashing the daylights out of a dominant Australian team in the now defunct “Mini World Cup”.

His ODI numbers are impressive. 8,344 runs in 269 innings tell us he has been a great ODI player. But his average of 36.27 is at least 7 – 8 runs below the modern-day requirement to call someone impressive. Turn your head a little and you can see MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli average over 50.

Yuvraj’s strike-rate? 87.28. Excellent but not extraordinary either. He has 13 centuries and 51 half-centuries, implying that he makes a fifty-plus score every 4.5 innings – desirable but once again, not extraordinary. He is also one of India’s first true-blue T20 players, scoring 1,134 runs in 55 T20Is at 29.07 with a strike-rate of 136.95.

But, that is where it is important to understand the limitations of numbers. Yuvraj Singh isn’t loved because of the numbers. In many ways, the adoration he receives is quite similar to what a cherubic, curly-haired Sachin used to receive long before he turned into a run-machine. And that adoration comes by bewildering cricket fans, giving them experiences, giving them emotions that they haven’t felt before.

Nostalgia and Yuvraj

My first memories of Yuvraj are his dives at point and his sensational one-handed catches. India finally had a world-class fielder, even though it was way behind many cricketing powerhouses. Yuvraj and later to some extent, Mohammad Kaif, changed the way Indians fielded, setting the nation off on a long journey to where they are now, amongst one of the best fielding units.

With the bat, he was fearless, something that wasn’t a characteristic trait of the Indian team of the 90s. Indians weren’t the team they are now. They were bad in chasing and pressure got to them quite easily.

Indian batting collapses were a common sight. And that is why Yuvraj’s 84 against Australia in 2000 in Nairobi is still so dear to many a fan who grew up with him. A couple of years later, Yuvraj along with Kaif did the unthinkable, helping India chase down 326 in the Natwest Final after India were 146 for 5 at one point and we were still in the TVs-off-when-Sachin-was-out era. That chase was an emotion unknown to Indians too. And the legend was born, well and truly.

Over the years, Yuvraj’s cricket has been full of crests and troughs. He has been in and out of the Test side, his returns of 1900 runs at 33.92 in 40 Tests leaving much to be desired. But, in coloured clothing, Yuvraj always had the X-Factor. And at times, that X-Factor exploded in beautiful shades like in the T20 game at Durban in the 2007 World Cup against England, when he smashed a world-record 12-ball 50 including six sixes off Stuart Broad.

More to come from the battling southpaw

That performance had more or less cemented his legendary status, but his best was still to come. If there was a player who personified the adage, ‘Cometh the hour, cometh the man’, it is Yuvraj. 2011 took his standing to the elite level as he won the Player of the Series award in India’s victorious 2011 World Cup campaign. It would be six years before Yuvraj will score another century in ODI cricket.

Diagnosed with cancer, Yuvraj returning hale and healthy in itself was a miracle – leave alone being match fit, leave alone smashing a nerveless 127-ball 150 without even breaking a sweat as a 35-year old, just a few weeks after his marriage. The man keeps coming back and in great panache, a little like his mentor, Sourav Ganguly.

In many ways, logic wouldn’t explain Yuvraj’s cult following. India was never short of superstar batsmen. It keeps churning them out. But, there is more to him than just the talent. Those lovely wristy flicks off his pads and the hoicks over midwicket; those elegant gorgeous carved drives through and over the extra-cover. With a high back-lift and the bat coming down in a serene arc and then the flourish of the follow-through, the pulls in front of square-leg off the front foot when he is on song – all of them vintage, all of them with Yuvraj’s stamp, have gone a long way in building the legend.

Not for him is Sachin’s perfection or Virat’s superhuman consistency or Dhoni’s serene detachment. Yuvraj is adored because he evokes emotions of a different kind, the unthinkable, unexplainable surge of emotion that reminds us of pure joy, of the reason we loved the sport in the first place, an emotion that is too pristine to be tainted by the trivialities of numbers.

And so, Yuvraj will always be a superstar, even if he ends it here; but in the probable twilight of his career, his story needed this high for it’s a story that will make it to the Hall of Fame. It is a story that cricket needed, cricket fans needed, even as cold, calculative tactics, and steel-framed numbers threaten it each day!