Former World Cup-winning all-rounder Yuvraj Singh believes that getting swept by New Zealand at home is a bigger failure for the Indian team than the Border-Gavaskar Trophy defeat. India has faced a lot of difficulties in Test cricket in the last few months. They suffered a 0–3 defeat to weak New Zealand at home, a first in the team’s Test history. After this, it had to face a 1-3 defeat against Australia on its soil in the five-match Border Gavaskar series.
To a large extent, the poor performance of the team’s batting, especially captain Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, was responsible for both these defeats. Yuvraj told PTI in a video, ‘I think losing to New Zealand is more painful. Because they lost 3-0 at home. You know, this is not acceptable. This (losing BGT) can still be accepted because you have won it twice in Australia and this time you had to face defeat.
Avoid criticizing senior players by looking at past performance
The 43-year-old Yuvraj, the hero of India’s 2011 World Cup win, said, ‘I believe that Australia has been a very strong team for the last many years.’ Kohli scored a century against Australia but he was consistently dismissed on balls going outside the off stump. Rohit Sharma, on the other hand, could score only 31 runs in five innings and hence he decided not to play in the fifth and final Test match played in Sydney. But Yuvraj said it was unfair to criticize both the players considering their past achievements. He said, ‘We are talking about our legendary players Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, we are saying very bad things about them.’ Yuvraj said, ‘People forget what they have achieved in the past. He is one of the greatest cricketers of this time. Well, they lost, they didn’t play good cricket. They are more unhappy than us.
Yuvraj said he has full confidence not only in Rohit and Kohli but also in new head coach Gautam Gambhir, who was also his former teammate. He said, ‘I think the Indian team has the best minds with good knowledge of cricket right now in the form of Gautam Gambhir as coach, Ajit Agarkar as selector and Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah. They have to decide what is the right path for Indian cricket in the future. The aggressive batsman also praised Rohit’s decision to stay out of the Sydney Test.
This spoils the greatness of Rohit Sharma…
Yuvraj Singh said, ‘I think this is a big thing. I have never seen before that the captain’s form was not going well and he himself sat out. This is the greatness of Rohit Sharma that he put the team ahead of himself. Yuvraj said, ‘I think he is a great captain. Win or lose, he will always be a great captain. Under his captaincy we have played the (ODI) World Cup final. We have won the T20 World Cup. We have achieved a lot.
Easy to criticize players who are not performing well: Yuvraj Singh
Former all-rounder Yuvraj Singh urged critics to exercise restraint while analyzing the team’s performance. Yuvraj, who played 304 ODIs, 40 Tests and 58 T20 Internationals for India, said, ‘I can give my opinion and my opinion is that it is easy to say bad things about players when they are not performing. But it is very difficult to support them. The job of the media is to say bad things about them. My job is to support.
