Yuvraj Singh Odds

Name: Yuvraj Singh
Fact: He was named Man of the Tournament as India won the 2011 World Cup
Born: Chandigarh, India
DOB: December 12 1981
Country: India
Major club teams: Yorkshire, Kings XI Punjab, Pune Warriors
Nickname: Yuvi
Main role: All-rounder
Batting style: Left-handed batsman
Bowling style: Left-arm off-spin
Leading achievements: First player to take five wickets and score 50 runs in a World Cup game, first player to hit six sixes in the same over in a game featuring two Test-playing nations

When on his game, there is no better all-rounder in world cricket, but when all is not right with Yuvraj Singh, he can certainly don the Jekyll and Hyde persona created by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Yuvraj has all of the talent to be the biggest name in the one-day form of cricket and a captain’s dream.

He was at his destructive best with both bat and ball at the 2011 Cricket World Cup, winning Man of the Tournament as India romped to victory.

Against Ireland, Yuvraj started his masterclass by taking five wickets with his slow off-spin bowling and then finished the job when making 50 not out, thus becoming the first player to achieve this feat in World Cup history.

Yuvraj went on to scoop a further three Man of the Match accolades at the tournament, finishing with a batting average of 90.5 and taking 15 wickets.

Further highlights of Yuvraj’s blazing power in the middle of the order came at the 2007 T20 World Cup, when he launched all six balls in a Stuart Broad over against England for six.

It is his especially prolific strike rate that adds to Yuvraj’s talents, as it keeps the pressure off his fellow batsman, who may not be finding boundaries so easy to come by.

However, this batting style does not always reap rich rewards. In 2008 he averaged just 14 in a five-match series with Sri Lanka, while he left a previous tour of England with an average of 4.5.

This is something that both India and Yuvraj himself will be keen to avoid replicating in ten one-day matches with England in 2011.

The first five of these are in England, with the second half back in India after a small break.

Yuvraj’s batting power makes him a serious contender to be top runscorer, no matter how late in an innings he gets to the crease, although backing him to be man of the match may prove a more profitable strategy.