BCCI should honour players who have given their all for the national team: Yuvraj Singh

Former India all-rounder Yuvraj Singh didn't get to bow out of the sport with a big farewell match and doesn't have any regrets about it either but he did urge the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to honour players who have given their all for the national team.

Yuvraj retired from international cricket on June 10, 2019, after serving Indian cricket for 17 long years.

Considered to be one of the greatest-ever limited-overs batsman, and certainly the best No.4 for India in ODI cricket, Yuvraj finally decided to leave the sport after being left out of the national team for nearly two years.

But despite his invaluable contributions to Indian cricket, Yuvi had to call it quits without any fanfare or a farewell game.

Talking about his retirement, Yuvraj said he doesn't regret not getting a big send-off, just like some of his teammates, but feels that players who have served the national team for a long time should be given some sort of recognition when they decide to retire.

"I don’t think I’m a legend. I’ve played the game with integrity but I didn’t play much Test cricket. Legendary players are those who have good Test records. For giving somebody a farewell,



that’s not for me to decide, that’s for BCCI to decide.

"I just felt that the way they managed me towards the end of my career was very unprofessional. But looking back at a couple of great players like Harbhajan, Sehwag, Zaheer Khan, also very badly mismanaged. So it is part of Indian cricket, I had seen it in the past and I was not really surprised,” Yuvraj told sportskeeda.

“But in the future, anybody who has played for India for a long time and has been through tough situations, you should definitely honour him.

"Give him that respect, somebody like Gautam Gambhir, who has won two World Cups for us. Sehwag, who has been the biggest match-winner after Sunil Gavaskar in Tests. VVS, Zaheer, also,” said Yuvraj.

Yuvraj Singh played 40 Tests, 304 ODIs and 58 T20 Internationals for India from 2003 to 2017. He scored 8,701 runs at an average of 36.55 in ODIs with 14 hundreds and 52 fifties, and took 111 wickets at 38.68 apiece.

In 2007, Yuvraj showed his big tournament mentality when he hit Stuart Broad for 6 sixes in Durban during the first ever World T20. Yuvraj was player of the tournament when India won the 2011 World Cup and played a key role in the World Twenty20 triumph in 2007.