Yuvraj Singh: Batting for his legacy!

It¡¯s early morning and the Mumbai airports departure terminal looks as busy as a local train station. Through the crowds, though, one can still easily spot Yuvraj Singh standing in one corner.

Dressed in a red T-shirt, blue jeans, white shades and flip-flops the cricketer looks at ease. The locks that he had lost to chemotherapy have made their way back. He is surrounded by his team mates Zaheer Khan and Rohit Sharma but the usual autograph hunters have still made there way to him. The three wait to board their flight to Visakhapatnam, the venue for the first of the two T20 games against New Zealand on Saturday.

A year back there would have been nothing unusual about this picture, but then it hits you that the person in front is no longer Yuvi the cricketer but Yuvraj, the cancer survivor.

Just then a feeling of nostalgia strikes. Circa 2000 and a tall lefthanded batsman in his late teens is walking out to bat against Australia in Nairobi during the Champions Trophy in his debut ODI. He is largely unknown but as he starts to pull, drive and cut his way to 84, fans come to edge of their seats.

The mind is then flushed with other glorious images. He and Mohammad Kaif chasing down England¡¯s 325 at Lord¡¯s in the summer of 2002, his 112 in just his third Test at Lahore against Pakistan, the six-sixes he struck Stuart Broad for in Durban during the 2007 T20 World Championship, his cover drive against Brett Lee in Ahmedabad which took India to the semi-final of the 2011 World Cup and of him lying flat on the Wankhede track with skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni sitting over him with the World Cup trophy in his hand.

Those great moments were also littered with some gloomy memories, like of him never matching his ODI greatness in Tests, his poor record against quality spinners, his string of failures after the World Cup high and of course his illness.

All that seems blurry now. Yuvraj begins a new chapter in his life. He now stands where no other cricketer has ever stood. On Saturday, when he steps out on to the field against New Zealand in his first match since recovering from cancer he will be giving the word ¡®comeback¡¯ a whole new meaning.

This time he won¡¯t be playing for a spot in the team but he will be batting for his legacy. From now on ¡®what if?¡¯ will be a recurring theme of every conversation that anyone will have about Yuvraj. His career, from here, can take two possible paths.

The first one is the long one. Before cancer struck him, Yuvraj was a player who always stood on the cusp of greatness. He had delivered India the 2011 World Cup on his own and with that made a place for himself in the history of Indian cricket.

However, he was no Virender Sehwag, who had changed the definition of the opening batsman. He was not Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who had under his leadership won India two World Cups and took the Test team to the highest echelons. Even Yuvraj¡¯s batting and skills as a Test cricketer were always up for debate as he remained for a long time a player with great potential.

But now if he is able to score big runs he could, like Lance Armstrong, the most celebrated cancer survivor, become larger than the sport itself. All he needs is a few good knocks and he will forever be remembered as the man who looked cancer straight in the eye and defeated it. He would simply become a living legend.

Then there is a shorter path that Yuvraj¡¯s career could take. He can fail and still be remembered as the cricketer who had the potential to be great but whose career was cut short by the most terrifying disease, cancer. In this scenario if Yuvraj doesn¡¯t deliver with the bat or is not able to take the physical strains of professional sport, the illness that he fought so bravely could overshadow his life¡¯s story.

One path will give him immortality and the other sympathy. In the end what matters is how he fares on the pitch. We will have to wait and see, but for the moment just recall the image of Yuvraj getting down on his left knee and smashing Broad for a six over mid-wicket in Durban.