Sachin Tendulkar on Tuesday said
that he was scared of breaking down in front of Yuvraj Singh when he met the
left-handed batsman in London after his treatment in the United States for a
rare germ cell cancer. When I went to meet him in London, I was telling my wife
(Anjali) that I don’t want to break down when I see him. I met him and gave him
a tight hug. We enjoyed a meal and from the way he (Yuvraj) ate, I was
convinced that he is back on track,” Tendulkar told a select gathering during
the release of Yuvraj’s book “The Test of My Life’. It was a poignant evening
on Tuesday with the likes of Tendulkar, skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni and latest
batting star Virat Kohli recollecting stories and their emotional experience
during Yuvraj’s fight with cancer. “When I saw my wife discussing medical terms
with Yuvraj, I realized what he has been going through. He is like my younger
brother and I would ask God why it (the illness) had to happen to Yuvraj,”
Tendulkar said in an emotional tone. Yuvraj, in his typical funny manner,
recollected how he met Tendulkar for the first time. “My first conversation was
when I was looking at him in awe at the dressing room when suddenly he said
‘please pass on the biscuits,” Yuvraj said. To this Tendulkar said, “I have not
got those biscuits till now.” On a serious note, Dhoni said that he knew about
Yuvraj’s situation even before he told him about it. “When his test reports
came, someone told me he has cancer. I just said ‘are you sure’. The person
repeated that Yuvraj has cancer. I was shocked,” said Dhoni. Recalling India’s
World Cup triumph in 2011, Yuvraj said, “Dhoni does not talk too much while
batting. But when he got out against Australia in the quarterfinals, while
going back he said shaabash Yuvi jitake aana.” On a lighter vein, Dhoni
remembered how Yuvraj greeted him in the Indian team back in 2004-05. “Are bhai
kya chal raha hain, phir chhake maarnese kuchch nahi hota, match jitaanese
jyada appreciation milta hain,” he said. “First I used to refer to him as ‘aap’
and from then it came down to ‘tum’ and now it is ‘tu’,” Dhoni said. Young
Kohli remembered how during the World Cup, he went to Yuvraj’s room and found
out he was coughing a lot with medicines lying beside the backside table. “I
asked him paaji why are you coughing so much. And he replied because he has
cancer,” Kohli said.
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“I thought it’s his habit of fooling around with people. I
told him not to joke and I left the room,” he said. When the anchor asked how
Kohli got the nickname chickoo, Yuvraj said, “When he came to the team I
thought he resembled a baby bulldog with lovely chick. But now he has surpassed
me in all departments, including being the most eligible bachelor.” Harbhajan
Singh, who was also present, said, “During Yuvi’s illness, I never spoke on
that subject and I would always asked about the girl he is going to date when
he is back after treatment and the girl he would introduce to me.” On a lighter
vein, Yuvraj said that he was surprised when he got an SMS from Dhoni while he
was in the United States. “I replied in the SMS ‘is it real Dhoni’ because it
is so hard to get
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