Yuvraj Singh, India’s two-time World Cup winner, has apologised to the country’s only two ODI World Cup-winning captains, Kapil Dev and MS Dhoni, for his father’s comments. Yograj Singh, Yuvraj’s dad, has for years gone about targeting Dhoni, accusing him of dropping his son from the Indian team. Yograj’s comments on Dhoni are like a bag of broken records, the same thing time and again, just in different ways and comments. Yuvraj has mostly steered clear of such controversial statements, not reacting to what his father had to say. However, the former India all-rounder finally addressed the matter, expressing that he wants to say sorry to Kapil and his former captain and teammate, Dhoni, for the years of targeting.
“I would like to apologise to Kapil Dev and MS Dhoni about these comments. Whatever is said and done, Kapil paaji has been a great captain for India. I don't know what camaraderie my father had with Kapil paaji. I have played with MS Dhoni. I have also spoken about my relationship with him," Yuvraj told Sports Tak.
“Whatever my dad spoke about them, I told him that it's not okay. Things reflect on me; I have played with Dhoni. I would sincerely like to apologise to them but they also know these words aren't mine. As cricketers, I have huge respect for them for what they have achieved. That's pretty much it,” he added.
The episode, which is expected to drop soon, will be the first out-and-out Yuvraj podcast in a long time and will feature him discussing a range of cricketing topics, including Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Sanju Samson, Abhishek Sharma, Rishabh Pant, and the teenage prodigy Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. The two-minute teaser video also captures Yuvraj reacting to whether his father’s outspoken words and nature hurt him, to which he says, “I have told dad that it’s not ok”, possibly referring to the kind of outlandish comments Yograj makes about anything and everything under the sun.
What Yograj said about Kapil
{{/usCountry}}The episode, which is expected to drop soon, will be the first out-and-out Yuvraj podcast in a long time and will feature him discussing a range of cricketing topics, including Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Sanju Samson, Abhishek Sharma, Rishabh Pant, and the teenage prodigy Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. The two-minute teaser video also captures Yuvraj reacting to whether his father’s outspoken words and nature hurt him, to which he says, “I have told dad that it’s not ok”, possibly referring to the kind of outlandish comments Yograj makes about anything and everything under the sun.
What Yograj said about Kapil
{{/usCountry}}While Yograj’s dislike for Dhoni has been known for a long time, he suddenly caught attention last year when he raised strong allegations about Kapil, saying he threatened the former India captain. Yograj still carries a grudge against Kapil for being dropped from the Indian team back in the early 1980s. Yograj accused Kapil of sabotaging his career and even revealed that he once showed up at Kapil’s house with a pistol to confront him.
Kapil remained calm, deciding to slip in a snarky remark when he said, ‘Who is Yograj Singh?’, but the explosive accusations still remain. Yograj has yet to follow up on his quotes, but bringing up Kapil for something that happened 40 years ago sounds unnecessary.
Then there’s his animosity against Dhoni, which surprisingly took an unexpected turn lately when Yograj said he wants Dhoni to continue playing as long as possible and that he admires the former India captain. This change in heart could possibly stem from the fact that recently Sandeep Patil, the former BCCI chairman of selectors, cleared the air once and for all that the decision to drop Yuvraj from the Indian team wasn’t on Dhoni’s demand, but because the selectors felt he could no longer bring to table the traits that once made Yuvraj Singh an indispensable force in world cricket.
In fact, if anything, Yuvraj once revealed that Dhoni was the one to give him clarity about his role sometime in 2017 – when he made his final comeback into the Indian team – informing him that the team management was not looking at him as part of its future plans, a move that helped make Yuvraj’s decision to announce his retirement in 2019 easier.