Yuvraj Singh showed why he is still a force to reckon in international cricket
when he slammed an unbeaten 200 off 195 balls in the Irani Trophy game
against the Mumbai side. His knock was such a blistering one that most of the
Mumbai bowlers were plastered to all parts of the ground and by the time he had
declared the innings closed, the Mumbai team needed more than 700 to win the tournament.
Earlier, Yuvraj Singh had failed in the first innings of the Test match
when the side had managed to get to 668 - becoming the only player to miss out
on scoring the runs. Abhinav Mukund and Parthiv Patel had scored smashing
centuries in the innings and had put the Mumbai team on the back foot. However,
it was not the same in the second innings as he promoted himself to the number
three position and smashed the bowling to all part of the ground.
His unbeaten 204 meant that the Mumbai side needed to score 782 to win the
game on the fifth day of the game and were basically knocked out of the game.
Yuvraj Singh had been dropped from the Indian Test match team to play against
Australia after he had lost his form, fitness and runs and it looked like it
was going to be a long haul out of the side. His place in the Test match side
was taken by Suresh Raina. Raina had scored a century on his Test match
debut and helped the side draw the second Test match against Sri Lanka and then
again scored a half-century in the first innings of the Test against the Aussies.
Yuvraj said that he was happy to get back amongst runs after having wanted
to get back to the form after the longish lay-off that he had had to endure
in the recent times. Yuvraj also explained that he was trying to play according
to the merit of the ball, and that is how he played through the innings against
Mumbai. He also said that the track was a good one to bat on and the
ball was coming on to the bat.
Yuvraj also defended his decision to bat again instead of enforcing the follow-on.
He said that the bowlers were very tired and it would have been difficult to
bowl the team out twice in the game.
|
