New Delhi
India’s World Cup-winning former all-rounder Yuvraj Singh believes that the defeat at home to New Zealand was a bigger disappointment than the defeat in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Even though Team India has lost the Test series in Australia by 3-1, Yuvraj Singh is not among those who are criticizing captain Rohit Sharma and experienced Virat Kohli for their failure. In the last 8 Test matches, India has lost 6 matches, while Team India has been able to win only one match. Because of this the team could not enter the final of the World Test Championship.
In the last two series, the bats of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma remained silent. Regarding this, Yuvraj Singh said in an interview to PTI, “According to me, losing to New Zealand at home is more painful because they have lost 3-0 at home. You know, this is not acceptable. It (losing BGT) is still acceptable, because you have won twice in Australia. And this time you lost. I believe Australia has been a dominant team for the last several years.” Australia won the WTC Final and World Cup Final in 2023.
However, Yuvraj Singh said that it is unfair to criticize Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli considering their past achievements. He said, “We are talking about our great players Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, we are saying very bad things about them, but people forget what they have achieved in the past. He is one of the greatest cricketers of this time. Well, they lost, they didn’t play good cricket. They are getting hurt more than us.”
Regarding his fellow cricketer Gautam Gambhir (who is now the head coach of Team India), Yuvi said, “I think Gautam Gambhir as a coach, Ajit Agarkar as a selector, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, these Everyone has the best understanding of cricket at this time and they have to decide what the path of Indian cricket will be in the future.”
The former all-rounder praised Rohit for keeping himself out of the Sydney Test and said, “I think it is a big thing. I have never seen before that the captain’s form was not going well and he himself went out. This is the greatness of Rohit Sharma that he has put the team ahead of himself. I think he is a great captain. Whether winning or losing, he will always be a great captain and under his captaincy, we have played the (ODI) World Cup final. We have won the T20 World Cup. We have achieved a lot.”
He further concluded by saying, “I can give my opinion and my opinion is that when players are not performing well, it is easy to say bad about them, but it is very difficult to support them.” . The job of the media is to say bad things about them. My job is to support my friends and brothers. For me they are my family. This is a simple thing.”
