Yuvraj Singh plans to return to professional Cricket
Dashing former Indian left-hander Yuvraj Singh has expressed his desire of overturning his decision of retirement, which was taken in June last year, and return to professional Cricket, playing for his state side Punjab.
According to Cricbuzz, Yuvraj, player of the 2011 World Cup with 362 runs and 15 wickets in the tournament, spent some time in the last few months working with the young Punjab quartet of Shubman Gill, Abhishek Sharma, Prabhsimran Singh, and Anmolpreet Singh at the PCA Stadium in Mohali at the behest of the Punjab Cricket Association. It was during that period that, almost sub-consciously, he was sucked back into the vortex of playing.
In an interaction with Cricbuzz, Yuvraj said, “I enjoyed spending time with these youngsters, and talking to them about various aspects of the game, I realised that they were able to pick up various things that I was telling them. I had to get into the nets to show them a few other elements, and I was pleasantly surprised at how well I was hitting the ball even though I hadn’t held a bat for a really long time.”
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Until the Punjab players’ off-season camp, Yuvraj had spent much of his time playing golf and tennis once the lockdown restrictions were lifted. “I also trained for those two months, and then I started to bat in the off-season camp. I made runs in some of the practice matches. Mr Puneet Bali, the secretary of the Punjab Cricket Association, approached me after one of the sessions and asked me if I would reconsider coming out of retirement.”
Yuvraj continued, “Initially, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to take up the offer. I was done with domestic cricket, though I did want to continue to play in other domestic franchise-based leagues worldwide if I got permission from the BCCI. But I also couldn’t ignore Mr Bali’s request. I gave it a lot of thought, for nearly three or four weeks, and it was almost as if I didn’t even have to make a conscious decision in the end.
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“The motivation is to help Punjab win championships. Bhajji (Harbhajan Singh), myself, we have won tournaments, but we haven’t done it together for Punjab, so that was a big factor in my final call. Obviously, Shubman is already playing for India, and I feel there’s plenty of potential in the other three boys. If I can contribute in any way to their development and to the development of Punjab cricket, then that will be wonderful. After all, playing for Punjab is what paved the way for my international career.”
Yuvraj, after making up his mind, put out an email to BCCI president Sourav Ganguly and secretary Jay Shah, seeking their permission to come out of retirement. In his letter of last week, Yuvraj has made it clear that if he can play for Punjab again, he will obviously not pursue his options of playing outside the country.
Yuvraj played in the Global T20 League in Canada last year
He has yet to hear back from the board. The letter seeking permission stemmed from the fact that he played for Toronto Nationals in the Global T20 in Canada in August last year, and for Maratha Arabians in the Abu Dhabi T10 League last November. “As things stand now, I will be playing only T20s if I get the nod. But who knows, let’s see,” said Yuvraj.