Replying to former India batter Sanjay Manjrekar‘s question around an unfulfilled Test career on Sports18’s special segment called ‘Home Of Heroes’ last year (uploaded on the YouTube channel of Jio Cinema earlier this month), former all-rounder Yuvraj Singh admitted that opening the batting in Test cricket wasn’t his calling.
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Yuvraj, who had played 107 ODIs and five Tests until the second Test of Australia’s tour of India 2004 in Chennai, was asked to open the batting in his sixth Test. Readers must note that the opportunity had come three years after he had faced the new ball twice in ODIs – alongside Amay Khurasiya and Sourav Ganguly in Coca-Cola Cup 2001.
Having opened the batting just once in Test cricket, Yuvraj had walked out with Virender Sehwag in both innings of that Chepauk Test under Ganguly’s captaincy. Originally a middle-order batter, even Sehwag had transformed into a legendary opener at Ganguly’s behest. A similar experiment with Yuvraj, however, was pretty short-lived on the back of his returns of 8 (40) and 7* (8).
“It [opening] wasn’t my slot. [No.] 5 would’ve been a perfect slot for me. But then there was VVS Laxman, who was a great Test player,” Yuvraj said on Sports18.
Yuvraj, who scored a maiden half-century and a maiden century in his second and third Tests (both away from home) respectively, used to average 51 after his first four Tests. Failures in both innings of the first Test against Australia (his fifth) in Bengaluru was followed by Ganguly replacing Aakash Chopra with Mohammad Kaif and promoting Yuvraj up the order.
With the southpaw not cashing in on an opportunity which he didn’t endorse personally, he didn’t get to play another Test for the next 11 months. With Ganguly also missing the third and fourth Tests, Chopra and Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar had regained the opening and middle-order spots respectively in Nagpur. Yuvraj, on the other hand, was either ignored or warmed the bench during series against South Africa, Bangladesh (away) and Pakistan before making a comeback in Zimbabwe the following year.
Yuvraj Singh Aspired To Play 100 Test Matches
If truth be told, Yuvraj, in spite of truckloads of flamboyance and flair, not reigning supreme in Test cricket will always remain an unsolved mystery. “It wasn’t meant to be,” Yuvraj himself blew the gaff on a 40-match career spanning across nine years during the same conversation.
Other than Yuvraj not being able to find a spot in the middle-order due to a Fabulous Four comprising former captain Rahul Dravid, Tendulkar, Ganguly and Laxman denying him frequent chances, he was honest enough to acknowledge other reasons which never let him build a prosperous Test career.
“It’s just been bad luck. I missed a couple of opportunities. I just feel it was not meant to be. I tried 24×7. It [Test match success] was more important to me. It was everything to me. Because as a young kid, I wanted to be a good Test player. I wanted to play 100 Test matches,” Yuvraj added.
Yuvraj, who refrained from “blaming anyone” for his faults, rued not converting eye-catching half-centuries into three-figure individual scores. Additionally, getting diagnosed with cancer at a time when it looked like he would get a longer run in the Test team also worked against him.
More than six years after playing his last Test match, Yuvraj, a veteran of 139 first-class matches, continued to represent Punjab in the prestigious Ranji Trophy. As a matter of fact, Yuvraj, who has 26 hundreds in the format to his name, had even expressed a desire of a Test comeback post scoring four centuries across Ranji Trophy 2014-15 and 2015-16.
