Yuvraj Singh, the new King of comebacks

In Indian cricket, this title was earlier dedicated to Sourav Ganguly, who was incidentally the first captain that Yuvraj played under. Both perhaps mock the life of a prosaic by being vulnerable and in the process, inviting challenges to them only to overcome them.

Yuvi gloriously started his international career with a counterattacking 84 against Australia in the 2000 Champions Trophy quarterfinal, which India won. The period from 2002-2006 was where he was his peak, until ironically it was in the 2006 Champions Trophy that he suffered his first major injury.

He had to endure an immensely tough one year being out of form too, which made many believe that Yuvi’s days in the team were numbered as not being in the Test team did not help his case either. But he shot back at his critics with an impressive showing in the World T20 2007, hitting 6 sixes off England’s Stuart Broad in one over and a 35-ball 70 against Australia (yet again!) in the semi-final.
Since then, he worked tremendously on his bowling to become the all-rounder that India needed badly. It went well for two years but all that perhaps took a toll on his electric fielding and overall fitness levels, which alarmingly dropped by the beginning of 2010.

2010 was easily his worst year as he was for the first time, left out of the team altogether. Fortune favours the brave though, and that made Yuvraj make a remarkable comeback in the 2011 World Cup. Indeed, he is the player India needs on the big stage. His performances were a déjà vu of the 2007 T20 event, impactful and eventually championship winning. Suddenly he was the toast of the nation for winning the Man of the Tournament Award!

Just when things were looking up for Yuvi, another setback occurred. Towards the end of 2011, a stunning revelation of him having lung cancer emerged. Amazingly though, he improved his mental ability to come out of it. Despite being out of the game for 18 months due to treatment, it was evident that he had become a much stronger player than before.

But then again, Yuvraj did not have it easy. Ravindra Jadeja had deservedly taken his place and with increasing competition, he was ignored. So he went to Europe for a specialized fitness training program, which has clearly made him look leaner, fitter and a lot younger than his age.

With eye catching performances recently in the ODI domestic season, he is back in the ODI squad for the Australia series. It remains to the seen whether he makes it to the playing XI and if he does, will he make the most of this opportunity?