“This game taught me to fight, how to fall, to dust off, to get up and move forward. It has been a lovely journey…see you all on the other side.” 

THESE are the words that will forever inspire a generation that dreams to be like Yuvraj Singh someday.  He coughed blood, hung around and won India the 2011 World Cup. Time and again, Indian cricket’s “superman” bounced back after adversities that would have felled most others. He even battled a rare germ cell cancer to return to cricket — a testimony of triumph in life. 

But this morning, Yuvraj Singh — India’s greatest ever limited-over batsman admitted that he will never be seen again in a blue jersey, a uniform he made his own for the better part of his 17-years of career. 

Today, eight years after he prevented cancer from dictating his life choices, a tearful Yuvraj Singh brought the curtains down on a roller-coaster international career. In a choked voice, this morning, Yuvraj Singh read out his final speech. 

“I have failed more times than I have succeeded but I never gave up and will never give up till my last breath, and that’s what cricket taught me.”

To me, Yuvraj Singh means hope and at least that’s what people who loved him felt too. When all is well with Yuvraj, he hits the ball as clean and long as it has ever been hit. And when he bats, take a close look at his eyes. They speak of a calmness that borders on serenity, and a combination of composure and resolve.

In the last 17-years of his international cricket, all has been well with Yuvraj more often in limited-overs cricket, where he can be effortless and brutal at the same time. That being said, his ODI career is full of highlight reels, with the biggest impact being his contribution to India’s World Cup triumph in 2011 – 362 runs, 15 wickets, and four Man-of-the-Match awards, and the Player of the Tournament. That put to shade even his awesome achievement in the World T20 triumph in 2007, where he famously hit a Stuart Broad over for six sixes. 

The World Cup win in 2011 was the biggest moment of his cricket career, but soon after that came the biggest challenge of his life, when he was diagnosed cancer which required a two-and-a-half month treatment in the USA. He returned home after completing his chemotherapy in April 2012, fairly confident that he could resume his duties on the cricket field reasonably quickly and in August he was named in India’s squad for the World T20 in Sri Lanka.  But it was not an easy cake-walk. He struggled, to an extend I felt a class 7 boy would bat better than him. He looked completely confused and panicked. In the 21-ball ordeal, he faced in the World T20 final against Sri Lanka in Dhaka, it sapped India’s momentum in the middle overs. His dismal performance eventually played a massive role in India’s defeat.  Thousands of fans, who worshipped him, suddenly became his supernatural enemies. Some of them even reveled in front of his house and reportedly pelted the building with stones. That was clearly a poignant end of a celebrated cricketer. 

He looked livid and disgusted with himself for having given it away after fighting so hard. At the juncture he found himself, he needed a bigger score to secure his immediate future. But it never really clicked and I knew his career was over. 

Two years later, I met him for a brief interview during the IPL in Dubai. “People need to understand that even cricketers go through a bad phase and they, too, have a life to live,” he told me. Yes, it’s true cricketers, too have a bad phase but Yuvraj never really came back after that. 

There are many, me included, who cursed Yuvraj, when he wriggled in that T20 World Cup. We truly owe him an apology and a salute. But, someday all good things will come to an end. So, does this beautiful story of Yuvraj Singh. And that’s what we call life. 

No one hits a six over cover so effortlessly and so majestically as Yuvraj Singh. And that’s how I would like to remember him. Thank you for the beautiful memories, Yuvraj Singh! 

Nishad Padiyarath is the Executive Director of The Arabian Stories.