Goodbye Pie-chucker: How Yuvraj Singh taught a generation to believe

The years that followed would see Yuvraj go on to realise all this potential and talent that cheerleaders and wannabe cricket experts like me believed he was blessed with. He would score his maiden Test century in 2004 against Pakistan and a bowling attack led by Umar Gul breathing fire, and follow that up with solid ODI (one day international) tons in Australia, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and Pakistan over the next couple of years.

There was something about England that Yuvraj loved. Some of his highest ODI scores have been reserved for the Poms, including his career-best 150, which he reserved for his last season of international cricket — a time when everyone had already written him off. Who can forget that spat with Flintoff in Durban at the T-20 World Cup in 2007, which drove him to whack Stuart Broad for six sixes in an over? His part-time, sling-like left-arm spin, most memorably, won the ire of former England captain Kevin Pietersen, who called Yuvi a ‘pie-chucker’ after falling to his bowling on multiple occasions. The retort from Yuvraj was unrehearsed: “I like that name!” He wore that attitude on his sleeve. No wonder he is loved.

Yuvraj won India two world cups — the inaugural T-20 World Cup in 2007 and the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2011. He calls the latter his ‘greatest achievement for India’. It was no surprise then that when a journalist asked him at his retirement announcement, if he ever regretted not scoring 10,000 ODI runs for India, his answer was as honest as could get — that if he had to choose between winning the world cup and scoring 10,000 ODI runs, he would pick the former.

“I have had more failures than successes,” said Yuvraj, at his retirement announcement, and he wasn’t far from the truth. His inability to do well in the 40 Test matches he played, with an average of just under 34 and merely three centuries to boot, he said, would always be his one regret. His 11 runs of 21 balls in the finals of the T-20 World Cup in 2014 against Sri Lanka, which arguably cost India the cup, Yuvraj called, ‘the worst moment’ of his cricketing career. He was human, hardly legendary. And yet superlatives like ‘hard-hitter’, ‘destroyer’ and ‘batting heavyweight’ followed him every time he strode out to the middle, and casually sized up the field. Another superlative would soon be added to his repertoire: survivor. Yuvraj's battle with cancer and his comeback, however brief, is the stuff legends are made of. Maybe he was legendary, after all. He taught a generation how to believe in the power of fighting back.

Yuvraj Singh walks into the sunset with his head held high. In an era of silky smooth Indian batting, he was the gas pedal the team could step on, during any part of an innings. And therein is his legacy. Goodbye, Pie-chucker. The next time we watch a left-hander play the booming cover drive, the Indian cricketing fandom will think of you. Thank you for the memories.