Pain of a Prince

The Indian Premier League's tryst with controversies always leaves a bad taste in the mouth while everyone wants to savour some delightful cricketing moments. With every season the list and magnitude of the IPL controversies has got bigger and bitter.

While most of the troubles were to do with off-the-field issues, the case of Yuvraj Singh and his commitment to the Punjab team hogged the headlines for pure cricketing reasons.

It was said Yuvraj underperformed deliberately as he was displeased with team management's decision to dethrone him from the Kings XI's captaincy.

But why would a player of his stature, with World Twenty20 Championship lurking, deliberately do such damage to his reputation? It's not the first time that he has lost out on a key position. A player, once hailed as a future India captain, was stripped of Team India's vice-captaincy and was never considered again. A great player need not be a great leader. But he still remains the backbone of the Indian team and when in flow has the potential to rip off the opposition.

The Punjab southpaw undoubtedly has been one of the biggest disappointments in the IPL 3 but how right was it to blame him alone for the team's woeful performance? He had had a string of injuries and I doubt if his hurt wrist is 100 per cent fit. Also he's always had trouble with his consistency. But like Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj too needs just one confident innings to get into the murderous act.

To add to his agony, his team owners, except Preity Zinta, have been publically questioning his commitment to the team. Nobody knows how true or untrue that is, but if one of your biggest players is struggling with his form, making such statements certainly don't help.

Also there are talks of Yuvraj pitching for a place in other teams. Well every player was aware from the very first season that his contract with his team was for three years and he could change teams only if the teams decided to swap their players. So individually no player could take the decision.

And with fresh auctions lined up after few months, each and every player will be available to get under the hammer, so why single out the Punjab dasher?

Of course being stripped off the captaincy had left Yuvraj hurt and he had made his disappointment public, but is it enough to target him with all sorts of allegations? Perhaps he is a 'prince' who was never destined to become a 'king'. But no one can take away the royalty he possesses.