Former Indian pacer and father of Yuvraj Singh, Yograj Singh, has rekindled an old debate and lit a fresh fuse. In a recent interview with InsideSport, he anointed both Yuvraj Singh as India’s greatest and levelled a searing charge at MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli for allegedly fearing the talent of his son.
The claims arrive amid another swirl of the ‘greatest Indian cricketer' conversations. Yograj’s answers are emphatic and incendiary.
Yograj believes Yuvraj is India’s all-time great
“If you talk about all-rounders, the Kapil Dev. If you talk about batsmen, then you have Yuvraj Singh, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, and Sourav Ganguly, all these guys. But I think Yuvi is topping everybody in my book,” said Yograj.
He extended that thought into a grand ‘what-if’ arc for Yuvraj’s Test career - “He would have played about 200 Test matches and maybe scored 200 centuries, which I thought he was capable of,” Yograj added.
Then came the biggest flashpoint of the interview. Citing the cut-throat nature of elite sport, Yograj framed the environment around Yuvraj as adversarial, “As I told you, there are no friends in this sphere of success, money, and glory.”
He followed that with the sharpest and most explicit line of the interaction while naming Kohli and Dhoni. “There were always backstabbers, people who wanted to put you down. People were scared of Yuvraj Singh because they were afraid he would usurp their seats, because he was such a great player created by God Almighty. He has been one of the greatest players, and they were scared, right from MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli, everybody. ‘Oh, he might take my chair.’ ” - Yograj added.
{{/usCountry}}He followed that with the sharpest and most explicit line of the interaction while naming Kohli and Dhoni. “There were always backstabbers, people who wanted to put you down. People were scared of Yuvraj Singh because they were afraid he would usurp their seats, because he was such a great player created by God Almighty. He has been one of the greatest players, and they were scared, right from MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli, everybody. ‘Oh, he might take my chair.’ ” - Yograj added.
{{/usCountry}}Notably, Yograj Singh has been vocal about his son not getting proper chances and being a prey of politics inside the team even before. While Yuvraj Singh has never commented about these claims, Yograj has been relentless in convicting the Indian management for denying Yuvraj a career he deserved.
Yuvraj Singh was instrumental in India winning the 2007 T20 World Cup and the 2011 ODI World Cup. In fact, he was the player of the series for the 2011 tournament. After that he was diagnosed with cancer, which battled with and made a comeback into the national side. However, his career gradually faded away. This is exactly where Yograj feels that the management and the leadership core denied justice to Yuvraj.