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Yuvraj Singh during a practice session, in Visakhapatnam, on Friday |
Visakhapatnam: In a world that is increasingly deconstructed by Facebook status messages, take this for a statement: “You should not chase pipe-dreams, but if you have a horizon to look into, happiness is just around the corner.”
Wondering who’s the author? It’s Alessandro ‘Alex’ Zanardi — the former Italian F1 driver, who lost his two legs in a horrific crash in 2001, but at present is standing tall after his gold medal-winning feat at the ongoing London Paralympics.
While the world awaits Yuvraj Singh’s ‘debut’ in Saturday’s T20 International, against New Zealand, there is perhaps no better example at hand than Zanardi to explain what is going to be simply a beyond-the-words experience.
It’s a cricket match. Moreover, it’s popcorn cricket which nowadays gives even Shah Rukh Khan a run for his money with its overgrown flamboyance and value-for-money entertainment. But sorry, on Saturday it will not be cricket.
From defending life against the hostile bouncers of cancer, to being the cynosure at the ACA-VDCA Stadium, Yuvraj has covered a journey in which he has ran far beyond the 22 yards that he was usually used to. He didn’t give up on the horizon, chasing it even when others said a comeback to competitive cricket would be steeper than the Everest. The result — happiness is just around the corner for him.
There are other obvious ways of looking at India’s two-match T20 series against the Black Caps. With the World T20 just more than a week away, there’s no doubt that captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni would just be clearing his barrel before he and his boys take another shot at a title which they had won at its inception.
But no matter how much normalcy is preached, Saturday will not just be another weekend for the cricket fans. And why just cricket fans?
Yuvraj is now the flag-bearer of hope for all those people who refuse to believe that impossible is nothing.
Some may argue that he is not the first such example… But even if he is a reminder of all those remarkable comeback stories, there’s no way the man deserves anything less than a flawless salute.
It will be not be about how many runs he accumulates on Saturday, nor will it be the wickets, it will just be Yuvraj — the man and the moment.
However, there’s a cloud, literally, over all such rollicking expectations. The weather in Visakhapatnam has been playing truant for the last couple of days and heavy rains are predicted for the match-day as well.
Tickets at the 25,000 capacity stadium have already been sold out. Chances of the heavens opening up (it did late on Friday evening) are maximum. A divine intervention is the need of the hour to witness the surreal moment.
Restricting ourselves to the more mortal aspects of the game, one must say that should the Indians stay true to their potential, the Black Caps would just be blown away. Period.
But it’s T20 and predicting the outcome will be like predicting silence in the Parliament. True, this New Zealand team is not even half as threatening as the one led by Stephen Fleming used to be. Not even the addition of experience, in the form of Daniel Vettori and Jacob Oram, guarantees much of a competition.
They are coming off four consecutive T20 defeats, two each against South Africa and the West Indies, and unless the Indians write their own epitaph, ‘a New Zealand victory’ will be an obsolete phrase.
For the Indians, who sweated it out at practice on Friday, it will be a chance to stake a claim in the World T20 playing XI. The likes of Rohit Sharma, provided Dhoni still has enough faith left in him, would be desperate to prove a point or two. So will be the case for Virender Sehwag, on whom lies the heavy responsibility of proving that his timing is still as crisp as the it used to be in his heydays.
Lost in all the Yuvraj hype is another story… A different comeback. Harbhajan Singh. From the dizzy heights of stardom, the once-feared off-spinner was thrown into the pits of oblivion following a lack of form.
But, as things stand, he might have to wait a little longer than Saturday to say, ‘Yes, I can.’
Till then, let us join the chorus and say, ‘Yes, Yuvi can…’ The man himself would also like to say ‘YouWeCan’.
Teams
India (likely): Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma/Manoj Tiwary, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Irfan Pathan, Ravichandran Ashwin, Zaheer Khan, Ashok Dinda
New Zealand (likey): Martin Guptill, Brendon McCullum, Ross Taylor, Kane Williamson, James Franklin, Jacob Oram, Daniel Vettori, Nathan McCullum, Doug Bracewell, Tim Southee, Kyle Mills
Umpires: S. Ravi, Sudhir Asnani. TV: Vineet Kulkarni
Match starts: 7pm
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