Few hits, few misses, plenty of old Yuvraj

Yuvraj’s second fifty of the season rescued Delhi’s innings. But it wasn’t enough to save them the match. (express photo by: Kevin D’Souza)

It was the fifth occasion in less than five minutes that Yuvraj Singh had swished his bat at a Hardik Pandya delivery and connected with nothing but thin air. He had even stood on off-stump this time around in a bid to swat it across the line. But to no avail. Thin air it was. Yuvraj had had enough. He threw back his head in anguish. Then he turned around and looked despondently in the direction of the square-leg, where stood Harbhajan Singh.

“What do I do now?” he seemed to be telling his long-standing team-mate. And it didn’t matter that Harbhajan was in the opposition at the Wankhede Stadium. Incidentally, Harbhajan even had some advice in store for him.
“Why don’t you try the squat in your stance,” he seemed to suggest. On cue and out of desperation almost, Yuvraj did just that. And voila, he finally got bat on ball, and off went the ball soaring over the point fielder towards the boundary ropes. The ball was fuller than the other ones, and made it easier for Yuvraj to connect with it. But he didn’t care. He had finally broken the mini-hoodoo. Harbhajan and Yuvraj exchanged words at the end of the over. Maybe the left-hander was just passing on his gratitude.

A bit embarrassed

They were all deliveries that the Yuvraj of old would have smashed over the deep mid-wicket fence or sent scurrying towards the point boundary without much fuss, and a lot of flourish. Even on a bad day. Pandya was after all just the kind of bowler he used to feast on. Medium-pace, back of a length with no movement either in the air or off the wicket. But here he was in front of 33,000 at the Wankhede, looking completely out of sorts, out of touch, and mightily embarrassed.

It was unfortunately a reflection of how his IPL had gone. He had scored 146 runs at 18.25. But it wasn’t the lack of runs that was his major cause of concern. It was instead the complete absence of the awe-inspiring aura that once defined his batting. He had more or less looked nothing short of abject. There were even some who felt he should be dropped for the Wankhede game after his latest failure to justify his opulent billing.

There were signs of a revival in the previous game at the CCI. And he started off well on Tuesday too, with a couple of pulled boundaries — one literally off the front-foot and the next slightly more strangled but still in control — against Lasith Malinga. But then came the struggle against the innocuous Pandya. And before he struck the Baroda medium-pacer for four, he had crawled to 21 off 32 deliveries. But this was the release he was waiting for.

The next three deliveries he faced, all off Malinga, were bludgeoned to the fence. The first was a full-toss that was whipped over mid-wicket. Then a lucky inside-edged four before he pulled out a stroke from the Yuvraj vintage — creaming an uppish cover-drive to make it three-in-three.

By now, Yuvraj had found his range. And out came the sixes. He first flicked a leg-side length delivery from Mitchell McClenaghan over the long-leg fence before he whipped a slightly fuller one from the Kiwi over backward square-leg — a six that would have given Stuart Broad the shivers. Yuvraj had taken centre-stage again, and he was soon at his theatrical best, blowing kisses and pointing fingers towards the dug-out. The second six brought up his half-century, only the second for the season. Next over, he was gesticulating semi-angrily at Parthiv Patel for having appealed for a bump-ball.

Show over

Then, off the very next delivery, the show was over. Yuvraj had fallen to a catch that he had got into vogue in his heyday — Lendl Simmons diving to his left and holding on to it one-handed before hitting the ground like a seasoned diver. Somehow it seemed an apt end to an innings that ranged between gauche and imperious, much like his IPL 8 season has so far.

Source:: Indian Express