Not Virat Kohli or MS Dhoni But Former Selector Feels This Indian Player Is God's Gift For Men In Blue

Former Indian cricketing legend and chairman of selectors, Sandeep Patil has called out of favor Indian middle-order batsman and a prolific all-rounder, Yuvraj Singh as a “God’s gift” to Indian cricket but conceded that for him to participate in the next World Cup, which will be played in England in 2019. He must be in form and should work on his fitness. Following his ouster from the Sri Lanka series, the 25-years-old was not included in the squad for the first three ODI’s against Australia.

“I am not the selector now. Two years is too long a period and the kind of injuries you have seen, there is too much workload on each player,” Patil further added.

Yuvraj who played his last innings for India during the ODI series in Windies became only the 5th Indian player to represent the nation in 300 or more ODI’s when he took the field against Bangladesh in the ICC Champions Trophy Semi-Final.

“Yuvraj was like a God’s gift, I have been his ardent fan and I will remain an ardent fan of Yuvraj. But he has to put runs on the board and he has to prove his fitness,” Patil said. The former chairman also called Dhoni “a special cricketer”. Dhoni was in tremendous form in the ODI series against Sri Lanka both with the bat and behind the stumps/

“It will be looked after by the professionals, who are working with the Indian team, so it will be wrong on my part to say what is going to happen with Dhoni, Yuvraj. But they are special cricketers, I wish I had even five percent of what they (kind of talent) have,” Patil said.

Men-in-Blue had to go through a transitional period when Patil headed the Selection Committee between 2012-2016. With the retirement of stalwarts like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, and VVS Laxman it became a very difficult task for the selectors to fill in such big boots.

“We had a very difficult task of replacing players such as Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan and get these youngsters. Somewhere, in my mind, I am very happy that the bold decisions which we took are giving tremendous results.”

He also praised the rise of all-rounder Hardik Pandya but conceded that it will take him 200 births to emulate the great Kapil Dev. He also lauded the selectors for resting Ashwin and Jadeja who are the primary spinners for the team primarily in the five-day format of the game. Patil also heaped praises on the team who is going through a purple patch and recently created history by becoming the 1st team to whitewash a host nation across formats.

“Indian team is at the top now, they are in top form, they are in top fitness, the combination, everything is going right. But, if you look at the history of cricket, about every 10 years things changed,” Patil signed off.