‘I Was Very Keen To Have Him In The Team As Was Dhoni’: Ex-India Head Coach Reveals This Player Was Caught In ODI WC 2011 Squad Conundrum | Cricket News
Former India head coach Gary Kirsten has revealed that Star all-rounder Yuvraj Singh was not the automatic pick in India’s squad for ODI World Cup 2011. He revealed that selectors doubted him initially but MS Dhoni the captain and Kirsten wanted him in the team and in the longer run this paid off.
“Thank goodness we picked him because it was flipping close, he was. It was not a slam dunk selection. The selectors kind of debated around the 15 players. I was very keen to have him in the team as was Dhoni because of the experience that he brought to the group. And look at the World Cup he ended up having,” Kirsten said on Rediff.
He also stated that he loved to watch him bat as Yuvi in full flow is a treat to watch.
“I was always very fond of Yuvraj. We had this kind of great relationship where like, he used to frustrate the hell out of me sometimes, but I just loved him. He was good. I just want him to be scoring runs all the time because when I watch him bat, it’s just like amazing to watch. But there was a journey he had to walk and credit to Paddy,” he added.
“Paddy did a lot of work with Yuvi to get him ready for that World Cup. Yuvi himself made some key decisions around getting himself prepared and ready for the World Cup,” the former head coach concluded.
Yuvraj was the Man of The Tournament scoring 362 runs in the tournament also taking 15 wickets. Later the world got to know that he was suffering from cancer all this while in the tournament and this made his performance one for the ages. The left hander scored fifties against England, Ireland and Netherlands in Group Stage. His clutch knock came in the quarterfinal clash against Australia scoring an unbeaten fifty against the mighty Ricky Ponting & Co.
The 2011 ODI World Cup Squad:-
M.S. Dhoni (captain & wicket-keeper), Virender Sehwag (vice-captain), Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli, Yusuf Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Praveen Kumar, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Munaf Patel, Piyush Chawla, R Ashwin.
