Tuesday, December 20, 2005

The Future Is Bright - The Future Is Yuvraj !!

The title line which was kind of making waves early in the twenty-first century when Yuvraj made that stunning debut at Nairobi can now, I guess be safely transformed to reflect the present. Yuvraj Singh has finally arrived in full flow and World Cricket is better for it. For Yuvraj brings to the game an incredible amount of value, just by his breathtaking strokeplay.

I would unhesitatingly state that Yuvraj is the most gifted striker India has ever produced since Sachin Tendulkar (with the possible exception of VVS Laxman, that too only for certain strokes). Here Dileep Premachandran pays tribute to Yuvraj's fantastic innings today and also pats the selectors on the back for keeping the faith in this mercurial yet phenomenal player.

But while Agarkar's innings spoke of the great depth of India's batting, he had to cede the day's honours to a man who came to the crease with everything to prove. His first-innings failure - few had bothered to note just how good a delivery Murali had produced to snaffle him - had reopened the debates about Yuvraj Singh belonging at this level and, shamefully, there were quite a few people willing him to fail here just so that their warped designs for Indian cricket could be carried on.

"In the event, the management and selectors that reposed faith in one of India's brightest young talents are fully entitled to pat themselves on the back, and show contempt for those who doubt the efficacy of a long-term vision that is already delivering spectacular results. Where his 77 at Delhi had been a dour effort tailored to the needs of that particular hour, Yuvraj's 75 today showcased everything that is special about his batting.

The drives crunched through the covers were glorious, but it was the manner in which he swept a doosra from Murali to the midwicket fence that was most telling. Against the sharp-turning ball, he is still far from the finished product, but the fusillade of magnificent shots that flowed from his bat this afternoon were ample proof of why he should be in the team. At his best, his outrageous talent makes him a matchwinner, and you just don't keep men like that out of a side. If Yuvraj carries on in this vein and does what Michael Hussey has done to revitalise the Australian batting, Indian cricket will be well served."

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You seem to have a clear bias against Ganguly so as to balme him for laxman's runout. If you want to be a respectful blogger that people will come to, you need to do better than that. In case, you have not notices, none hardly comes to your blog to comment.

Also response like shown below does not help. If you can't take shit and hard criticism, better not blog at all.

At 6:44 PM, Anonymous said…

This post is utter crap


At 2:23 PM, GK said…

oh yeah, and who the hell are you if i may ask ?

M said...

dude
i agree with you on some views (that he is extremely biased against sourav; laxman doesnt need anyone to run himself out... he has achieved that feet a lot of times ;-) )
but gourav has full rights to voice his opinions. and so do we. (one good thing about this blog is, our comments are never deleted however criticizing they are.)
but then dont be anonymous. if you want to flaunt your opinions, do it openly.

M said...

and yes, just mentioning that a particular post is crap is "not very responsible". you should explain why you think so.
if he doesnt get tired writing biased stuff, even we can repeat our arguments.

Gaurav said...

Anonymous,
I am not a great fan of Ganguly but I have no "bias" against him. Thanks, however for being concerned about the respect I am accorded as a blogger. I do notice how many people come to my blog and comment; what you seemed to have failed to notice is that you lack the courage to come out in the open and hide under anonymity. I would say that my response was quite appropriate to your initial comment.

Btw, I have had it with anonymous commenters. Comments are welcome but I expect guys to at least take the pains of creating a blogger ID to comment.

Vivek said...

Yeah, anons can be a PITB... you can force sign-ins for comments I think!