What a fantastic night that turned out to be for Yuvraj Singh and Indian cricket, 10 years ago!
It was the inaugural T20 World Cup being held in South Africa and India were doing pretty well under new captain MS Dhoni, with a squad full of young blood and one that not many experts had backed to do well. Plus, India had played only one prior T20I coming into this tournament.
India won the toss and elected to field first in that group stage game against England on 19th September 2007, at Kingsmead, Durban. Fifties from Virender Sehwag & Gautam Gambhir meant a quick 100-run opening stand and the stage was set for southpaw Yuvraj Singh to come in and set the stadium alight.
For those who don’t know, it was English all-rounder Andrew Flintoff who got Yuvraj all worked up, while Stuart Broad had to pay the price. Yuvi had just come in and there was a slight altercation between the two after the 18th over.
Neither Dhoni, nor the umpire could stop Yuvi as he walked to Flintoff almost till the boundary to make his point clear that he wasn’t very happy with what Flintoff had to say to him. Well, whatever words were spoken between the two seemed to work in India’s favour.
Yuvraj was all riled up and hit every ball of the 19th over over the fence. Stuart Broad tried everything possible – changing his bowling angle, changing his lines and lengths but Yuvi was in the mood and there was no stopping him, as he went on to hit 36 runs in that over and also score the fastest ever international fifty, across all formats.
He notched up 50 in just 12 balls as captain MSD was watching the action from the other end. Today marks ten years since that over that put Yuvraj down in history books, having joined Gary Sobers, Ravi Shastri and Herschelle Gibbs – those who had accomplished this feat in the past.
Yuvraj ended that innings at 58(16) and ironically, it was Flintoff who picked up his wicket. India amassed 218/4 and while England tried their best to chase that down, they ended up falling 18 runs short of the target. India then went on to win that tournament, beating Pakistan in the final!
Here’s a video of that historic day:
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