da bet7： Yuvraj Singh suffers the consequences of being shuffled around in the test batting order
da poker： Dileep Premachandran20-Jul-2005
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As far as falls from grace go, Yuvraj Singh’s has been steep enough towarrant a parachute. After a magnificent century at Lahore, albeit in alosing cause, the Indian team management were impressed enough to considerhim indispensable. When Sourav Ganguly returned for the Rawalpindi Test aweek later, Aakash Chopra made way, despite having been part of fourhundred-run partnerships with Virender Sehwag in the eight Tests wherethey opened together.At the time, Yuvraj was supposed to slot in as an opening batsman, butafter India knocked Pakistan over after tea on the opening day, it wasParthiv Patel who strode out to face the wrath of Shoaib Akhtar andMohammad Sami. The logic then was that the in-form Yuvraj was too preciousto be sacrificed at the top, and Ganguly even went so far as to say that hedeserved to play in his natural habitat: the middle order.Six months on, Yuvraj did poorly in the opening Test against Australia atBangalore, but he was hardly alone in that regard. And after a solitaryfailure as opener in Chennai, he finds himself surplus to requirements,with Chopra, who was axed for Chennai, curiously back in the fold. If Yuvraj isconfused, you could scarcely blame him. Considered a better bet at the topof the order than Chopra just ten days ago, he’s now not good enough for amiddle-order slot, even with Ganguly missing.Mohammad Kaif’s gritty 64 in Chennai won him the vote, which doesn’t saymuch about the team’s philosophy of keeping faith in its players. Afterall, if Patel – whose keeping continues to be wretched – can be persistedwith, then why not Yuvraj, who has hardly had enough opportunities to belabelled a failure?The only plausible reason for his dramatic demotion lies off the field. IfYuvraj is indeed guilty of being seduced by the trappings of fame, thefault lies partly with the management. Sporting greatness is only possiblewithin the framework of a benevolent dictatorship, as Douglas Jardine andSir Alex Ferguson could tell you.If, and there is no concrete proof for this, Yuvraj is indeed a big-timeCharlie – as Ferguson famously referred to one of his axed stars – heshould have been made to walk the straight and narrow months ago. Indiancricket can’t afford a profligate approach to young talent, what withTest-class performers so thin on the ground.