Public adulation, just like public memory, is very short and fickle. It only takes one loss or one match gone wrong for the people's wrath to erupt.
To us loss in a major sports event is a catastrophe. But win a big tournament and players are showered with honour and expensive gifts.
Six months ago Yuvraj Singh was the bad boy of Indian cricket. He never claimed to be a paragon of virtue but the media concocted a strange creature by mixing up his personal and public life, because of which he ended up being the media's favourite punching bag.
No matter what he did to improve his image, he was the whipping boy and that certainly put pressure on him. Media campaigns, good or bad, end up affecting the attitude of the decision makers.
The way Ravichandran Ashwin was praised for his bowling, the top class off-spinners of the country — Erapalli Prasanna and Srinivas Venkatraghavan — must have wondered whether they really tormented the opposition in this game.
Like Yuvraj there was pressure on Ashwin too. That he handled the pressure admirably is another matter.
Dhoni and Kirsten deserve credit for their planning. Barring half a dozen players in the squad, the rest were not too sure of themselves or about the chances they would get and if and how they would be used. Both Yuvraj and Ashwin were part of this lot.
It is this uncertainty that players go through that was very subtly handled by Dhoni and Kirsten. They looked at the players from the point of view of extracting their best for the World Cup. To do that a sense of security had to be instilled in the team. A confidence building exercise had to be implemented for the players who were not certainties.
Yuvraj always had the talent. The problem was he didn't believe in himself and that affected his consistency. In a nutshell, he became his worst enemy. To him the game became complicated in 2010. The more he tried to wriggle out of the situation, the more he got stuck in what looked like an impossible scenario to him.
Handling competition
A sportsman's life is all about how you handle competition. Sachin Tendulkar has enjoyed and survived the game for two decades in the midst of the worst controversies like match-fixing and bashing because he stayed in the present and never ever lost focus. To him the game was a mere sport but he fearlessly and unwaveringly fought his opposition to achieve the maximum from the competition.
Yuvraj candidly stated he wants to play Test cricket. That is the dream of every aspiring cricketer. But is he ready to fill in the shoes of either Dravid or Laxman?
Does he have the technique to bat on different surfaces, bouncy or wearing, in different situations against bowlers who would bowl in longer spells with totally different field settings employed to make the strategy work?
Playing cameo knocks in ODIs or T20 that will destroy the opposition, winning accolades and instant praise is one thing but playing Test cricket is the ultimate test of nerves, endurance, reading and handling of situations.
Yuvraj after the success in the World Cup may be high on confidence but if he covers all the aspects that make the player successful at the Test level, he is capable of playing knocks that will give stability to the Indian batting line-up.
