Yuvraj Singh opens about his inspiring battle against cancer on 'Humans of Bombay'

In a bid to promote his cancer foundation ‘YouWeCan’, Indian cricketer Yuvraj Singh recently talked to ‘Humans of Bombay’, a Facebook photoblog that captures the lives of people in Mumbai. In the post, Yuvraj opened up about plenty of incidents from his life, including the time Sourav Ganguly chased him with a bat, the first time he played for India and his arduous battle with cancer.

“The way I look at it, I went through cancer so that through my foundation YouWeCan, I could do more for those who need it. I believe that I had to go through it to have a larger purpose. God has been kind enough to give me everything and the only way forward is to give back,” Yuvraj told Humans of Bombay.

He then went on to add, “I’m looking to enter a different avenue and make the fight against cancer even stronger. Today, I sponsor the entire education of 25 kids whose parents don’t have the funds. When I met them and they told me about their ambitions, I knew that this is what I want to continue doing — give back and help them make a ‘come back’, just like I did.”

Recounting a particularly hilarious incident from his time in the Indian cricket team, the southpaw said that he and Harbhajan Singh had once reprinted a Times of India front page to make it seem as if the captain at that time, Sourav Ganguly had made disparaging comments about the team. What ensued was anger and surprise on the part of Ganguly, who was later told by Rahul Dravid about the April Fool’s prank played by Yuvraj and Harbhajan.

Yuvraj then talked about his path to the Indian senior team following a successful run at the under 19’s level.

“The real turning point was the Under-19 World Cup where I performed better than ever before. I remember at that point, I would watch Tendulkar and Ganguly on my television set and know in every fibre of my being that someday I would be out there playing with them — I felt it, I knew it; I believed it. In 2000, I got the opportunity to play my first International game with these big guns. I can’t describe that experience — in my head, I was still the little boy from Chandigarh running around on the field, muddy, breaking windows with my shots but when I looked around I saw my heroes — Tendulkar, Ganguly, Kumble on the field with me.”

Yuvraj further talked about his life, highlighting incidents from his first job as a player for the Air India corporate team and how his father pushed him to pursue cricket as his preferred sport of choice as skating wasn’t a viable career option.

Read other stories from the 34-year old left-handed batsman’s life in the Facebook post made by ‘Humans of Bombay’ below.