Yuvraj Singh says that he is in the most important part of his career and would not really be troubled by the prospect of having to go back to start from scratch so that he can get back to the national team once more. It seems that he is making his words count from the fact that he has decided to practice at Chandigarh for the short time that he is there. Once he was in the city he was called up by the Punjab Cricket Association and he opted to join the nets for a long session and also had a session in the gym before that.
While talking to the media Yuvraj has expressed how good he has been feeling and is confident of returning to the groove in a quick time. Majority of the people who were there at Chandigarh have seen him from the earliest phase of his cricketing journey when he was picking up the nuances and learning the game. They are, it seems, amazed at his present levels of fitness and have been comparing it to how he was looking 7 to 8 years back. The training session in France under noted coach Tim Exeter has definitely paid a lot of dividends as he is now looking slim, strong and fit and ready to go.
Yuvraj has revealed that he was experiencing back problems during the last 10 days of the recently concluded IPL and this was the reason he was not feeling fit. So he decided that he should train under a professional coach outside India so that he could become even fitter and play once again for the Indian team and from the results it seems that he has been successful. The lynchpin of the Indian team that won the 2011 World Cup, Yuvi’s career has come back from a career and life threatening catastrophe like cancer and he also played in the World T20 in Sri Lanka in 2012 but he did not really meet expectations owing to fitness related issues.
He has also brushed off suggestions that he should have waited some time before he made his comeback saying that after his treatment the doctors had informed him that he would be good to go in 14 months. He also said that he had trained hard at that time and all he needed were more matches. Yuvraj has stated that he will be fighting hard to perform well in the domestic tournaments and make a claim for a spot in the national team.
He has also stated that the presence of Zaheer during the camp in France was a motivational one since both of them started their careers at the same time and he felt it was really encouraging to see him put in a lot of hard work. Yuvraj also revealed that during the camp they discussed different aspects of fitness and also stopped each other from consuming too much of unhealthy stuff so that they remained on course with their fitness goals. The left hander is expected to play in the Katoch Shield, an inter-district cricket tournament in Punjab and Zaheer will be doing further fitness work in South Africa.
It is heartening to see cricketers like Yuvraj, Zaheer and Gambhir are taking their return to the Indian team seriously and working hard towards achieving it. However, one man who has been strangely absent all this while is Virender Sehwag. We can only hope that he too is working hard somewhere to gather his bearings and make a resounding return to national cricket. One thing is for sure – the coming Ranji Trophy will be a cracker because there will be some hungry former stars looking to shine again.
