Grumble with Gaurav | Gaurav Kalra
The allure of the great game in this age are well known. Big bucks, adulation, women, fame; all available at the snap of a finger just because you can cover drive with grace or swat a cricket ball over the fence with disdain. For the outsider it all seems just too perfect. A life in the arc lights, where the rewards exceed effort. Where talent has a measure in staggering bank balances, where the girlfriend is akin to a man of the match trophy; won with the toil of a day but just another statistic when a new dawn arrives.
Yuvraj Singh's destiny is tied to those stereotypes. As he shoos the cameras away, he is judged in drawing rooms across the nation and beyond. 'Look at that paunch,' they snigger, 'He doesn't care anymore.' 'Why should he bother', they opine, 'He has enough in the bank for generations to come'. 'So what if there isn't too much cricket left in him, he is a good looking bloke, there is always a Bollywood film to do, and he knows a few people there, right?', wink wink. Continue reading below
Sportsmen know being judged by those who know little of their trade is a professional hazard. So Yuvraj would have gulped the criticism as the runs dried up and the theories gained ground. We called him fat, questioned his attitude, wondered about his relationship with the man who deposed him as skipper of his own city's team. And Yuvraj had no choice but to watch silently in an empty hotel room and digest that too with a meal he possibly consumed with guilt. But was it fair game to even suggest he 'underperformed on purpose'? Has form deserted him or his integrity? Has ambition to win cricket matches for his team been replaced by a destructive streak to extract revenge on those who wronged him? Does defeat bring him perverse pleasure?
If the answer to any of these questions is Yes, Yuvraj must never play for India again. After all, then this is a man driven by a selfish streak that disregards team interest. But if the answer to these questions is No, then there must be an apology on the front page of the same newspaper that published this scandalous story.
The Yuvraj I see, and can claim to know very little of, is somehow a different man. Consider the era he has grown up in as an Indian cricketer. Fiercely ambitious, Yuvraj had to wait for years for a spot in the middle order of the Test team. Frustrated he might have been, but bitter he possibly never was. Yuvraj watched from the dressing room the reverence with which Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly and Laxman treated the game. Would a man who has earned his stripes after this apprenticeship, 'under-perform' on purpose? Would it not be ingrained deep within his very core that to attempt any lesser than your very best at every opportunity you walk out to bat is an insult to the game? Would he be able to look his hero Tendulkar in the eye after an innings where he deliberately lobbed a catch to an opposition fielder?
Can we perhaps fathom the sulk? Why was being dumped as captain of Kings XI Punjab such a blow? Could it be because the judgement made by a film actress past her sell by date, a businessman with little understanding of the game and a coach with a modest first class record would murder an ambition Yuvraj harbours? To one day be captain of his country. Unlike the sacking of Dravid and Ganguly, who were no longer in the race for the India job when the axe fell, Yuvraj's sacking as captain of his IPL team comes at the most inopportune moment in his career. It ends any chance to realise a deep rooted desire. To walk out with the India blazer wrapped around him as India captain. Could it be that he has been hit hard by the savagery of that punch and is taking time to recover?
Yuvraj perhaps wonders why it is that he has never led India? Or even been considered for the job? Why it is that he was removed as Dhoni's deputy? Why it is that Gautam Gambhir has stolen a march over when India's future captain is discussed in powerful circles of India's cricket establishment? Why it is that even if Dhoni tweaks an ankle and Sehwag sprains a wrist, the job will not come to him? Why is it that even after more than 7000 ODI runs and the admiration of his team-mates, he remains essentially an outsider?
Neither the fat pay cheques, nor the women, nor the admiration of doting fans will ever replace the gnawing unease of those questions. Ones that wander in his troubled mind, and perhaps hamper the free flow of the bat when he confronts a leather ball hurled at him. But with time, the questions shall cease to annoy. Peace will be made with reality. The feet will move. The body will heal. And the talent will shine through. Till then, bear with the lack of performance. But don't accuse him of willfully doing that, because he isn't designed to.
Yuvraj Singh is a Prince perhaps destined never to be King. Once he knows that, it shall no longer matter. We all await the day.
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