Yuvi Read online

  Yuvi

  Makarand Waingankar

  This book is dedicated to Polly Umrigar and

  Frank Tyson, two men who gave back to

  cricket much more than they got from it.

  Polly didn’t have a mean bone in his huge frame and

  Frank had a heart of gold even while living up to

  his first name.

  Mumbai and Indian cricket owe them a great deal.

  Me too.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Foreword

  Introduction

  1. Chasing the Dream

  2. A Prophecy Named Yuvraj

  3. Testing Times

  4. Shabnam Singh

  5. Yograj Singh

  6. Speaking of Technique

  7. Climbing the Peak

  8. The Future Beckons

  Yuvraj Singh: The Figures

  Career Highlights

  Photographic Insert

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Foreword

  I have known Yuvraj Singh’s father Yograj since 1977, when we played in the Under-22 team against the touring MCC team led by Tony Greig.

  Yograj was part of the late Col. Hemu Adhikari’s camp that was held at the Cricket Club of India for many years under the auspices of the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India). These camps had many young and upcoming cricketers, including the great Kapil Dev, Roger Binny and Yograj Singh himself. As a journalist, Makarand Waingankar used to write about these camps.

  Once, Makarand’s job took him to Jullundur; he was helping cricketers to get more exposure, especially those who came from the smaller states. He watched Yog at his practice and instantly thought, Here is a potential India player who must be encouraged.

  Though Yog hadn’t played any competitive cricket for a season, the national selectors, on Makarand’s recommendation, picked him for the Board President’s XI against Pakistan. The year was 1979. In the match at Baroda, Yog claimed three important wickets including those of Majid Khan and Javed Miandad.

  Makarand took great interest in Yog’s game and mentoring soon led to friendship. He got him down to Mumbai to play for Mafatlal in the prestigious Times Shield tournament. Yog got the exposure he needed as he played with and against Test and first-class players. Soon, he got picked for the 1980–81 tour of Australia, New Zealand and Fiji.

  I got to know Yog very well on that tour and we became friends. In 1982, he invited me to Chandigarh along with Makarand and we spent about a week in the city which I was visiting for the first time. That was also the first time I saw Yuvi.

  I visited Chandigarh many times during my playing career and each time discovered how much Yuvi had grown. He was scoring heavily in inter-state games. Though I did not see him play, word got around that here was a boy who would eventually play for India.

  At their home, Yog showed me how he trained Yuvi in the backyard and told me that little Yuvi was finding it tough to cope with his hard-work mantra. I was surprised when he proudly pointed to a cupboard full of cricket bats he had bought for Yuvi.

  One day, Yog called me from Chandigarh to say that he wanted to send Yuvi to my cricket academy in Mumbai. He felt Mumbai would offer tougher lessons to Yuvi and he would make better progress as a cricketer. I was happy to include Yuvi in the set-up. As he was staying with Makarand at Andheri, a suburb in Mumbai, he had to take a train to come to Churchgate where my academy is located.

  The first day was a nightmare for young Yuvi as he found travelling in a crowded local train extremely difficult. However, he got used to it and became a regular member of the team. I sent him with the academy team to Satara, in southern Maharashtra, in the summer and he not only performed with the bat but also fielded brilliantly on a bouncy outfield. One could see the talent in him as he cleared the ground time and again with remarkable ease. He certainly was a special talent.

  In later years, Yuvi played first-class cricket for Punjab and scored heavily. His India debut was on the cards and soon, he was picked for the 2000 Champions Trophy in Nairobi.

  India had a strong and settled middle order then and Yuvi had to wait for his Test opportunity. I was in Lahore in 2004 – all the former Test captains had been invited to watch the match – when Yuvi scored a brilliant hundred. After watching him bat, I thought he would play Test cricket for many years for India.

  Unfortunately, he was not given enough opportunities to settle down in the squad and had the sword hanging over his head each time he went in to bat. This helped neither Yuvi nor the team.

  When I became the chairman of the selection committee in 2006, Yuvi was included in the playing XI against Pakistan. And what a century he scored in the last Test match at Bangalore! It was an innings right out of the top drawer.

  However, just before the 2007 World Cup, he twisted his knee and was sidelined for most of the season. That was a big blow to his career. He fought hard, came back into the team, did very well in the one-dayers and T20s but could not get going in Test cricket. Surprisingly, he found the short stuff difficult to handle, and that’s where he continued to struggle despite being enormously talented.

  Yuvi is a fighter, as is evident from his struggle against cancer. In comparison, I am sure, overcoming his weakness against short-pitched deliveries will be very easy for him.

  He just has to apply his mind and then I am sure we will see Yuvi the world beater once again.

  Finally, a word about the author of this unusual book: Makarand Waingankar is passionate about the game at all levels and is a very good and experienced writer. His views on the game, its administration and players have always been forthright. He has also been a very close family friend of Yuvi and his understanding of the young man and his unique circumstances is one of the many reasons why you will enjoy reading this book.

  DILIP VENGSARKAR

  September 2012

  Introduction

  My journey as a cricket journalist dates back to 1969. I covered matches and wrote columns for national newspapers but never thought of writing a book. Many urged me to write, explaining that experience is useless if not shared. When I refused to succumb to the pressure, one of them said that I didn’t have it in me to write a book.

  That hurt, because to me, cricket is a way of life. For more than four decades, I have been following the progress of Indian cricket. And it was the ‘why’ factor in the sport that motivated me to initiate various cricket projects, including this book.

  Having been responsible, among other things, for the Talent Resource Wing for the BCCI which helps to unearth players from the small towns of India, I have come to the conclusion that a cricketer’s success has much do with the circumstances of his life and how he responds to these. One of the worst things to happen to a child, perhaps, is to be born with a gigantic middle name, a name that is keen to ensure that his son achieves what he couldn’t. While the great Don Bradman’s son changed his name to Bradson, Philip, son of ‘Typhoon’ Frank Tyson, gave up the game when he was called ‘breeze’ for bowling medium pace.

  The extent to which parents will go to make something of their kid is bizarre. I was witness to one such experiment in Sector 11, in the city of Chandigarh, the home of former Indian cricketer Yograj Singh. There must be many ways for a man to encourage his son to become a cricketer, but the methods adopted by this father were unique, closest perhaps to what Andre Agassi underwent to become a superstar.

  Even more unique was the conviction in the man. He had absolute faith that he would win the battle he was preparing his son for. The father was determined, but what about the boy whose life was being scripted without his consent?

  He had a strange childhood. Did he understand why he couldn’t
do the things his friends did? Did he understand why he was the only child in the world who was being treated this way? The game of cricket was torture for him; it’s a miracle that he didn’t break down at some point.

  No amount of reasoning on my part could dissuade Yograj Singh from his chosen path. His explanation was simple: ‘What I couldn’t achieve after working like a donkey, I will get my son to achieve.’ From then on, my visits to his house were mute. Yuvi’s mother Shabnam, herself a state basketball player, had no say in the matter and however much Yog’s old mother muttered about his methods, her voice was never heeded. Nothing could change Yograj Singh. He listened to only one thing: the voice of his past, which had experienced – and hated – failure.

  Once, I saw the kid, then eleven years of age, weep after being hit by a hard ball during a makeshift backyard practice session in the severe winter of Chandigarh. I was furious. I could not bear to see it anymore. The boy’s misery increased day by day. However, as he grew, things began to fall into place. I was surprised, but Yograj wasn’t. His plan was working. There was a method in the madness after all.

  Yuvraj Singh, as we know him today, is the product of that method of madness. I have watched every step of his journey. I did not approve of the method, no one did. But it did work.

  One morning in December 2011, I got a call from Karthika V.K., Publisher and Chief Editor of HarperCollins India. She requested me to write a book on Yuvi. My immediate reaction was, ‘why not?’ but the evening brought with it a set of dilemmas. How could I describe what I had observed? Could moments like these be translated into words?

  I was distraught. Maybe that person who had said to me that I couldn’t ever write a book was right after all. Then Karthika came to Mumbai to meet me and after talking to her, everything started to make sense. She said to me: ‘You have known Yuvraj from his younger days, you are the right person to write this book.’

  Engrossed in my PhD thesis on the history of Mumbai cricket, I had thought writing a book on Yuvi would drain me out, partly because I knew more than anyone else did. But Karthika gave me confidence. I began to feel that it was my duty, perhaps, to write the book. What I had seen should be documented. Stories get lost if not told, and this story should not be lost. For at the heart of this tale is a dilemma that every reader has faced, or is likely to. Was Yograj Singh right in doing what he did? Is Yuvraj Singh the cricketer a compensation, a justification for what his father underwent?

  There is something of Yograj in every one of us. We all see ourselves in our children, invest our own dreams in them, burden them with our unfulfilled ambitions. To question Yograj is to question ourselves. What does your child mean to you? Is your child living out a prophecy that you outlined for him/her? Is your child leading his life or yours?

  This book was a personal journey for me, a revisiting not only of the past but of everything that happened around me. As more and more youngsters join national teams as teenagers, the pursuit of stardom goes on. Around me are kids who want to become famous cricketers and parents who want their children to become superstars.

  The goal is lustrous, but what of the means? Is stardom worth the turmoil? What often becomes more important than the tale itself is the way it is told. How could I put a lifetime of experience onto paper? To dig into the past was to dig into memories. Memories that have been distorted by success.

  I must confess I spent sleepless nights thinking about how to weave together all the different strands. Here I must state that I was helped a great deal by Shireen Azam, the twenty-year-old daughter of my friend Mohammad Azam. I was worried that my personal biases would affect how I looked back on events, but Shireen helped me edit the manuscript like a true professional.

  When you see someone grow, you develop a unique bond with them. Yuvi, to me, is not just the man the world sees him as. In him I will always see the infant Yuvi, the child, the teenager, the man trying to make a mark in the world. At the same time, this book is not only about one man called Yuvraj Singh. It is about many Yuvrajs. I have tried to present the other side of the entertainer. I hope I have succeeded in my attempt.

  MAKARAND WAINGANKAR

  September 2012

  Chapter One

  CHASING THE DREAM

  The hall is dark except for the spotlight which follows the dancer as she walks onto the stage. The musician enters right after her and takes up his position at the other end. He begins to play, slowly.

  The dancer’s body starts to sway to the music, not a finger out of sync. The music plays smoothly, not a note out of place. The musician plays like magic, and the dancer dances like a dream. The music increases in tempo and intensity, and so does the dancer’s body, moving almost effortlessly. They go on in unison, reaching a crescendo, then they finally stop. The performance ends. They take a bow. The lights come on. A hundred chairs stare at the dancer and the musician. The hall is empty.

  By definition the word ‘perform’ means to enact or present a piece for an audience. The performance is meaningless unless there is someone to appreciate it.

  It is the audience that looks upon performers with awe, wonder and reverence. We are enthralled by their talent. We call ourselves their fans. We love them. We are intrigued by them. We want to know everything about their personal lives – their habits, likes, dislikes, interests, affairs, secrets. They become an obsession almost and we go to any length to meet them, to get their autograph, a souvenir, a memento – anything related to them. We chase them, we keep chasing them.

  But who are we chasing? Is it the person or the performer? We create a star out of a performer. And often, in this relationship between the performer and the audience, the person inside the performer gets lost.

  We pay little heed to the talent, the inherent skill, and focus only on the entertainment quotient of the act. Talent or skill is irrelevant unless it is of ‘use’ to the audience. So we become ‘fans’ only of those who have the capacity to fulfil our need to be entertained.

  Thus we reduce the performer to a mere entertainer. He becomes a slave to the expectations of the masses and is dependent on them, for fame, for money, for appreciation, for his very survival. And we, the audience, become more and more demanding. He continues to do everything that is demanded of him until he reaches a point where he has nothing left to give.

  It doesn’t matter what the activity is. Life treats a dancer, singer, actor and sportsman in much the same way.

  On the day when a match is being played, the television is left on in many offices. Every now and then, people get up to check the score. If India is playing well, they linger for five minutes; if India is playing badly, they make faces, crack a joke and get back to their work. If they see that an Indian is batting on 90, they call everyone to see him get his century. If they find him batting on 70, they watch a few balls being played, yawn and return to their desks.

  Unless, of course, it’s someone like Yuvraj Singh at the crease. Someone who is known to be an entertainer.

  ‘Oh my god! Three sixes in three balls! Come on, come quickly, Yuvraj is belting Stuart Broad. Three sixes in three balls already. Oh, you missed Yuvraj and Flintoff’s fight in the last over. Ha ha, this is so awesome. Woah! Another six! Is this for real!’

  The whole office gathers in front of the TV. From the peon to the boss, everyone stands with bated breath, staring at the screen, biting their nails. It is the last ball of the over. Broad is running in and everyone’s heart is in their mouth.

  SIX!

  Everyone is screaming. The whole office is on fire. Jumping, hugging, dancing. It’s a carnival. They can’t believe it. There’s only one name on their lips: Yuvraj Singh!

  They are following every ball of the match now. It’s a close match. . . When India finally wins, they rejoice. They are proud of their team. Proud of being Indian. Proud of the game of cricket which runs in India’s veins, their veins.

  But what happens when the Indian team doesn’t perform so well? How many of us care to stand in
front of the TV then? How many appreciate a painstaking 60 runs made on a tough wicket? We dismiss the team as a bunch of losers not worth wasting time over.

  Despite the claims we make about our love for the game, the reverence for it, cricket is only a game for us. Our mood may be temporarily affected by an India win or loss, but our lives and jobs don’t depend on it. And we enjoy a strange love–hate relationship with those who play the game. When they are successful we applaud their performance, we heap praise on them. But when they fail, we insult them, we call them traitors and mercenaries who lack pride and commitment. We burn their effigies and stone their houses.

  Why do we do this? Is it for them? Or is it for ourselves? Is national pride and patriotism embodied in the performance of the men in blue? Do they become the symbols through which we, the citizen–fans, express our patriotism?

  When the player on view falls while playing a match, we curse him for being careless. But if he gets injured before or after a match, we pray for him to get well soon and to get back into the team. Do we really care about the player?

  For the man in blue playing on the small TV in the shopkeeper’s loft, cricket is not a hobby or a pastime. It is his work, his profession, his means of survival. The sport that is a game to us is life for him in every sense of the word. And it’s not just his life. We do not let it remain so. He is public property, deployed in the national interest. His life becomes a responsibility, a way to realize the dreams of a billion people, to uphold the pride of a nation. We claim his success, his fame, his records and achievements as ours.

  But what of his failures? Whose are those? Where does our claim to them stand? Do we give up on our dreams? Or do we find other ways to fulfil them?

  There is no doubt that public memory is short. People’s prayers for a fallen hero last only for a while. He becomes the object of occasional sympathy, and soon his name becomes a memory. Another player takes his place. The nation and the team move on. No one needs him anymore.