Virat Kohli accused of axing Yuvraj Singh after cancer battle: ‘Yuvi requested… my way or highway captain didn’t listen'

Considered to be among the greats in cricket, Yuvraj Singh was an action-packed all-rounder and one of India's best match-winners in white-ball cricket. A key figure in India’s 2007 World T20 and 2011 ODI World Cup victories, the 43-year-old was India’s go-to player in crunch situations. During the inaugural 2007 World T20, he hogged the spotlight when he slammed six sixes in an over off Stuart Broad. In the 2011 World Cup, he became the first cricketer to take a five-wicket haul and get a fifty in the same World Cup match. He registered 362 runs in nine matches, at an average of 90.50. In the bowling front, Yuvraj also took 15 wickets at an economy rate of 5.02 and was adjudged the Player of the Tournament. After the 2011 World Cup, Yuvraj was diagnosed with a cancerous tumour stage-1 in his left lung and underwent chemotherapy. After a prolonged battle, he made his comeback in December 2012 but wasn't at the top of his game. He wasn’t picked for the 2013 Champions Trophy squad. Robin Uthappa opened up on Yuvraj Singh's axing from the Indian cricket team, while comparing Virat Kohli's captaincy to Rohit Sharma's.

When Virat Kohli became captain, Yuvraj made another comeback and then was finally dropped after a poor Champions Trophy showing, followed by a 2017 tour of the West Indies. Speaking on Lallantop, former India cricketer Robin Uthappa, a former teammate of both cricketers, opened up on Yuvraj’s comeback from cancer while comparing Kohli’s captaincy to Rohit Sharma. Rohit is currently under immense pressure after India’s Border-Gavaskar Trophy defeat and is reportedly set to lose the captaincy.

Robin Uthappa tears into Virat Kohli

“Virat’s style of captaincy was different to the extent that you needed to reach his level. Whether it was fitness, whether it was eating habits, whether it was listening, agreeing, all of that had to happen at that standard. There are two different types of leaders. There are leaders, who say this is the standard needed. There are leaders who say I will meet you where and I will elevate you to the standards I need you to be,” he said.

“Both work and both get results but the impact of the personnel will be different. One will value a lot, and the exclusive one will feel let down a lot.”

Virat Kohli's role in Yuvraj Singh's India axing revealed

Uthappa didn’t mince his words when talking about Kohli’s captaincy and indirectly blamed him for forcing Yuvraj out of the Indian team. “Take Yuvi Pa’s instance. The man beat cancer, and he is trying to come back into the international side. He is the man who won us a World Cup, won us two World Cups for that matter, along with the other players, but played an integral role in helping us win. Then for such a player, when you become captain, you say his lung capacity has diminished and you have been with him when you have seen him struggle. Nobody has told me this, I observe things. You have seen him struggle, then when you are captain, yes you have to maintain a level of standard, but there are always exceptions to the rule. Here is a man who deserves to be an exception because he is not just beaten and won you tournaments, but he has beaten cancer. He has beaten the hardest challenge in life in that sense. Some question room for someone like that,” he said.

Uthappa blamed Kohli for not giving Yuvraj enough time to make a perfect return to the Indian squad and wasn’t given leniency in the fitness tests. The former KKR player revealed that Yuvraj even asked for the fitness test level to be reduced by two points, but Kohli denied it.

“So when Yuvi requested for that two-point deduction, he didn’t get it. Then he did the test because he was outside the team and they weren’t taking him in. He passed the fitness test, came inside the team, had a lean tournament, took him out totally. Never entertained him after that. Whoever was in the leadership group, didn’t entertain him. That time Virat was the leader and it went according to him due to his strong personality, and that time it was according to him,” he added.

Comparing Kohli’s leadership style to Rohit, Uthappa mentioned that the RCB star’s leadership style is ‘exclusive’, and the MI player’s template is ‘inclusive’. Taking an indirect dig at Kohli’s captaincy approach, Uthappa also added, “I haven’t played under Virat as a captain very much. But Virat as a captain, he was very ‘my way or the highway’ kind of a captain. It's not like these guys aren’t also like that, but how to treat your team, how you treat your personnel, because it is not just about results.”

Yuvraj announced his international retirement on June 10, 2019. He last played in the IPL in 2019, when he played for Mumbai Indians.

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