(Image source from: Livemint.com)
Former India batsman Yuvraj Singh a year after retiring from international cricket alleged that the team management let him down towards the end of his international career and revealed he could have played another World Cup after the 2011 heroics if he had enough support.
In an interview to Aaj Tak channel, Yuvraj said:
(I) Regret that I couldn’t play another World Cup after 2011. There was hardly any support from the team management or people around. If that support was there then maybe I would have played another World Cup.
But whatever cricket I played it’s on my own. I never had any godfather.
Reiterating that he was ignored in spite of clearing the mandatory yo-yo test for fitness, Yuvraj said instead of just making every attempt to find ways to get rid of him, the team management should have been upfront in their communication in respect to his career.
I never thought that I would be dropped after being the man-of-the-match in 2 games out of the 8-9 I played after the 2017 Champions Trophy. I got injured and I was told to prepare for the Sri Lanka series.
Suddenly I had to go back and prepare for the yo-yo test at the age of 36. Even after I cleared the yo-yo test, I was told to play domestic cricket. They actually thought that I wouldn’t be able to clear the test due to my age. And that it would be easy to decline me afterward.
I think it was unfortunate because a guy who played international cricket for 15-16 years, you need to sit and tell him up front. No one told me and no one told Virender Sehwag or Zaheer Khan either.
However, Yuvraj said despite the feeling of being let down, he has no regrets about quitting the game and feels his retirement came at the right time.
There were plenty of things on my mind. I felt that the World Cup has started, the team has moved forward. I wanted to play some cricket out of India. Life was not going forward, it was stressful.
I was just wondering when to retire. I got married a few years before so I wanted to focus on my life. The end of my career became a bit of burden for me.
If I wanted to play a league outside India then I had to retire and I thought it was a perfect time. Things were not going in the right direction so I thought it was the perfect time for younger guys to take the team forward and for me to hang my boots.
Yuvraj concluded by saying that in the beginning, he used to take such things personally but now he has made peace with it.
I have seen it happen to big names. Took it personally then but not now as there is a time for everything to move on and I have made my peace with it.
(Video Source: Sports Tak)
By Sowmya Sangam
