Yuvi, a true champion on and off field

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Birmingham: He was a storehouse of talent at the onset, a rare blend of grace and power, but for the better part of his 17-year-career, Yuvraj Singh has been an enigma as well as a paradox in Indian cricket.
Standing on the cusp of his 300th ODI, it still remains a difficult task to describe Yuvraj in a nutshell. He is only the fifth Indian cricketer – after Mohammed Azharuddin, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid – who will achieve this rare milestone when India face Bangladesh, Thursday.
The 40 Test matches that he has played will not be able to tell the story of a cricketer, who, inarguably, will rank among India’s greatest ever match-winners in limited overs format. And that list isn’t too big.
Kapil Dev, Tendulkar and Mahendra Singh Dhoni are the names that immediately come to mind when one talks about match winners in the shorter versions. And that’s the paradox.
At times, it seemed as if there were two Yuvrajs residing in one single player. On one hand, there was a ‘Yuvraj 1.0’, who, as an 18-year- old, was not intimidated by Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie at their peak in his first ODI innings. He was an absolute match-winner in the shorter formats being a crucial member of the teams who won the 2007 T20 World Cup and the 2011 50 overs World Cup.
MS Dhoni’s six of Nuwan Kulasekara may have been shown a zillion times on TV, but without Yuvraj’s 15 wickets and 300 runs, India would not have triumphed at home in 2011. And he did all that coughing blood, couldn’t eat, and was totally unaware that he was suffering from a rare germ cell cancer. “He has been an inspiration, a champion on and off the field and you respect him for that,” skipper Virat Kohli recently said about the senior-most cricketer in the team.
The battle against germ cell cancer was the biggest he has fought in his life. It was tougher than a Lee yorker or a James Anderson outswinger. And that has made him a part of the folklore.
There will be cricketers, there will be match-winners, but then there will be one and only Yuvraj Singh. No doubt about that.