A highly emotional Yuvraj broke down before 33,000 people at the Wankhede stadium and millions watching on tv as they watched his captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni hit the winning four in last night's final against Sri Lanka.
MUMBAI: Dropped from the Indian team only last year, a transformed Yuvraj Singh turned out to be the man with the Midas touch in India's campaign to win the World Cup.
Yuvraj said it was difficult to control his emotions after the victory and had tears in his eyes for the first time, terming the moment as a "dream come true" for the team.
"I think it was the first time I was one times in tears because everybody were in tears," Yuvraj said.
"All through the match I desired to win it for him because what they has given to Indian cricket nobody has. The things they has achieved is exceptional. I always prayed to the Almighty that you ought to give it to him before they retires."
The dashing all-rounder, who had a dream run in the high profile match with 369 runs and 15 wickets, said they desired to win the coveted title for Sachin Tendulkar.
Despite being a regular in the ODI team, Yuvraj has never been able to cement a place in the Check team, which they has often said is the final dream of any cricket player.
It's been a exceptional change of fortune for the elegant left-hander who, a few months back, was struggling to retain his place in the team owing to poor form.
The retirement of former captain Sourav Ganguly provided him with the chance to cement a place in the Check team but they could not grab the chance with both hands.
Yuvraj was in and out of the Check team till they was finally dropped for the home Check series against Australia in October last year and was even left out of India's Asia Cup ODI squad in June.
"Since the loss in T20 World Cup I went through plenty of criticism. Getting dropped from the Indian team after 7-8 years was a large jolt for me. Then I decided I only need to make things better, so I started working additional because there's occasions when you need to step up the paddle," they explained.
In the run-up to the World Cup, Yuvraj was dogged by persistent injuries and his form was also not nice.
Yuvraj admitted they was not in the best of form before the beginning of the match.
"As a team it was a dream to win the World Cup. Since Gary (Kirsten) came and in the last one years they have been emphasising on the World Cup and how they going to go about it and by tiny, tiny steps they have achieved what the whole of India wanted. It is a dream-come-true for every individual," they added.
Being dropped from both the Check and ODI teams and battling one injury after another was very frustrating and Yuvraj describes that phase as the "toughest period" of his career.
"I was not in the best of form (at the beginning of the match). Things started happening for me. I started bowling well, batting well, fielding well. I worked hard on my game since last year. I was one times wondering why I was one times getting injured so badly."
"It was hard time for me. I think that was the toughest period for me in the last 10 years. There was a time when I asked myself, 'do I require to continue'? Seriously, I thought, 'do I require to play anymore or not'? There was lot of negativity around me," they had said in an interview earlier.
No comments:
Post a Comment