Yuvraj Singh's Golden Chance

Yuvraj Singh has the golden opportunity beckoning on the door for him as he has been selected in the test team for India against England. After having won the cricket world cup and silencing all critics who had signalled an end to his career, Yuvraj has the chance to do the same in the purest form of cricket, something which he has not done and something he is desperate to.

In limited overs cricket, Yuvraj has nothing much left to prove as he has the most prized possession of the man of the tournament in the world cup his team won. He has been India's main player in the ODI's for over 6-7 years. Being a veteran in ODI's , he has played 274 ODI's and has scored 8051 runs at an average of 37.62 with a good strike rate of 87.58 having 13 hundreds and 49 50's to his name. But the story has been very different in test cricket. He has played only 34 tests since his debut in 2003 and has scored 1639 runs at an average of 35.63 with 3 hundreds and 9 fifty's. In so many years he has never been able to establish himself in test cricket.

Yuvraj Singh  has got chances in Tests throughout his career especially during the period of 2007-08. I remember a valiant Yuvraj together with Tendulkar helping India chase 387 against England in november 2008 on a 5th day Chepauk pitch. After that eh hit a rough patch where Yuvraj did n't perform at all and thus was axed from the team. Players like Raina and Pujara took his place and thus Yuvraj was sidelined and not considered for Test cricket. He continued collecting laurels in ODI cricket without any success in test cricket. The problem I feel was never technique as a technical fault would have been exposed in even ODI's, it was all about approach to the different format. Test cricket required the kind of focus and application which Yuvraj did n't give. You can edge a ball in ODI for a four but in tests you will have a slip fielder out there to grab the ball. In ODI's you can drive in the air and still be safe but in test cricket you will have close-in fielders catching the ball. Yuvraj lacked the patience demanded by Test cricket and thus perished. But having suffered so much in the past 1 year and then coming back to win the world cup for the team, I think he has transformed and is not the old brash angry Yuvraj rather he has matured and has become more focused than ever. This is the time I feel he can actually make a comeback to Test cricket. He has hit the purple patch, is in a good frame of mind and has the confidence required to stage the comeback. Luckily for him Pujara is injured and Raina has n't impressed much apart from 1 or 2 innings and he stands a chance to be in the playing eleven in England. This is probably his last chance to establish himself in Test cricket. If he fails this time, he would fall off in the race to become a test cricketer. A cricketer is not respected if he is not a test cricketer so Yuvraj needs to do justice to his talent and become the kind of a player he is in ODI cricket for India. Who knows Yuvraj might just turn out to be the difference in this battle of the top 2 teams for the crown of the no.1 Test team in the world.