Indian cricket and its cricketers have seen an evolution and growth in the last 3 decades. The Indian team is constantly manufacturing world class cricket stars. One of the most notable features is the rise of Indian teams standards in fitness and fielding. India over the last two decades has been one of the best fielding sides, thanks to former skipper Sourav Ganguly who bought in strict measures.
The story so far -
Former Indian coach, R. Sridhar has come out with a new book. The title of his book is Coaching Beyond: My Days with Indian cricket”. The former fielding coach has revealed a lot of things which gives us a sneak peek into the Indian team’s behind the scenes which we rarely get to know about.
Ex Indian coach reveals an interesting moment about Yuvraj Singh and Virat Kohli
In one of his excerpts from the book, R. Sridhar spoke about the time when Yuvraj Singh did not train with Virat Kohli. The incident took place in Australia when India were touring for a 5 match ODI and 3 match T20 series. MS Dhoni’s side had lost the ODI series 4-1, while winning the T20 series 3-0 as Yuvraj Singh was just making a comeback to the Indian side.
Here is what Sridhar wrote about the peculiar incident “We were training at the Adelaide Oval in January 2016, the day before the start of the three-match T20I series against Australia. I was putting Virat through the grind and, typically, he held nothing back. Yuvraj Singh walked past me when I had expected him to join in and sat himself down in the dugout, watching us intently”
Sridhar reveals the logic behind the move –
Yuvraj Singh was just making a comeback to the Indian side along with Harbhajan Singh for India. The two also played the T20 World Cup a few months later, where India reached the Semi-Finals before getting knocked out by West Indies. Speaking about the move, Sridhar contemplated and wrote “Once Virat had left the field for a few minutes later, Yuvi came across for his practice. He told me, ‘I couldn’t have kept pace with Virat or matched his intensity. I thought it best that I leave you guys to it and once he finished, I can work on my fielding at my own pace, I could see where he was coming from. The next day Yuvi held a blinder at short cover off Hardik Pandya to get rid of Chris Lynn. There is something to say for practicing at one's own pace, I guess,”