One of the hard-hitters of the game, Yuvraj Singh, on Monday, 10 June, bid adieu to international cricket with an emotional speech and he has special mention for the two personalities in his retirement speech and they are none other than - Sourav Ganguly and Gary Kirsten.
The 37-year-old thanked everyone for their love and support throughout his 19-year-old career after announcing his retirement from all forms of the game on Monday.
In his retirement speech, Yuvraj picked Ganguly as his favorite captain -under whom he made his international debut in 2000, while Kirsten, under whom he won the World Cup in 2011, as his best international coach he played under.
He said, “I started my career under Sourav Ganguly's captaincy and got an opportunity to play with my idol, the great Sachin Tendulkar, and other legends like Anil Kumble, VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid and Javagal Srinath. My close friends who I grew up with playing for India, who also went on to becoming great match winners for the country such as Zak (Zaheer Khan), Gauti (Gautam Gambhir), Veeru (Virender Sehwag), Ashu (Ashish Nehra), & Bhajju (Harbhajan Singh).”
Former all-rounder continued, “This is the same batch that created history and went on to win the World Cup under the great captaincy of MS Dhoni and exceptional coaching of Gary Kirsten, probably the best international coach I played under.”
Meanwhile, Yuvraj particularly credited Ganguly for helping him in the initial years of his international career and hailed his leadership while mentioning MS Dhoni as a special captain with Dada.
He added, “Sourav Ganguly was very authoritative when it came to fighting for his players. He wanted certain players that he should back to build a team. Players like myself, Ashish Nehra, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh, and Virender Sehwag. He built us guys together.”
Yuvraj signed off by saying, “MS Dhoni was very composed under pressure. He had a very good mind behind the stumps and how the game was going. These two were very special captains.”
(With India Today Inputs)
