'We burnt whole house by standing for one person. Where is he?': Yograj Singh reignites fury over MS Dhoni-era decisions
Former India cricketer Yograj Singh, father of all-round great Yuvraj, has once again made a rather controversial remark, most likely aimed at MS Dhoni. Yograj has long been a staunch critic of Dhoni, seemingly after Yuvraj Singh was dropped from the Indian team under the former's captaincy. While Yuvraj had been a regular feature for India, particularly in white-ball formats, under Dhoni, his appearances became more sporadic following his return after recovering from cancer.
During an interaction with InsideSport, Yograj spoke about the 'brotherly' culture in the Indian team during the Ganguly era, stating that it changed because of 'one man.' While Yograj didn't explicitly name the person, the signs led to Dhoni.
'(We had) Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Javagal Srinath, Anil Kumble, and others. Bhajji (Harbhajan Singh), Yuvi (Yuvraj), Viru (Virender Sehwag), (Mohammed) Kaif, Zaheer (Khan) among youngsters. Combination of elder and younger brothers. That's why they could lead the youngsters and become the greatest of all time. And what we did? We burned out the whole house by just standing for one person. I won't name him. Where is he? See what happened,' said Yograj.
'When you give love, you get people like Sachin, Yuvi, Gambhir, Viru. They will never go down the drain. They will always be stars.'
This isn't the first time when Yograj took an aim at India's leadership after the Ganguly era. In the same interaction, he earlier accused the selectors of abruptly discarding some of the country's biggest match-winners after the 2011 ODI World Cup triumph. Yograj recalled how several stalwarts of the game were denied a proper send-off, with their exits handled without grace or accountability.
'You (BCCI selectors) just destroyed these boys for no reason,' Yograj told InsideSport in an exclusive interaction. 'Boys like Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Mohammed Kaif, VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid. You just made them go after 2011.'
Most of the names mentioned were dropped or faded from the national scheme within 18 months of India's title win; while Kaif hadn't been a part of Team India in 2011, Dravid and Laxman were regular features in Test squad a the time. Both retired a year later.
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