Yuvraj Singhਯੁਵਰਾਜ ਸਿੰਘ

Early life

Yuvraj Singh was born on 12 December 1981 in Chandigarh, the elder son of former cricketer Yograj Singh and Shabnam Singh. His father, whose own international career had been cut short by injury, poured his unfulfilled ambition into his son — training him with a rigour that Yuvraj would later describe as both brutal and formative. He studied at DAV Public School and DAV College in Chandigarh.

The investment paid off early. Yuvraj was the Player of the Tournament at the 2000 Under-19 World Cup, which India won, and he made his ODI debut for the senior side in October 2000, in the ICC KnockOut Trophy against Kenya.

Career

Yuvraj became India's most destructive limited-overs all-rounder. At the 2007 World Twenty20 in Durban, provoked by Andrew Flintoff, he hit Stuart Broad for six sixes in a single over — the first time the feat had been achieved in a Twenty20 international — and reached his fifty in 12 balls, then the fastest in all T20 cricket. India won the tournament.

His crowning achievement came at the 2011 ODI World Cup. Battling undiagnosed illness through the tournament, he scored 362 runs at 90.50 and took 15 wickets — including the first instance of a five-wicket haul and a fifty in the same World Cup match — and was named Player of the Tournament as India lifted the trophy. Weeks later he was diagnosed with a cancerous tumour in his left lung. He underwent chemotherapy in Boston and Indianapolis, completed treatment in March 2012, and made an emotional international comeback that September.

Major works

Beyond the World Cups, his career highlights include the NatWest Series final heroics at Lord's in 2002 (with Mohammad Kaif), seven ODI Player of the Series awards — the joint third-most by an Indian — and a celebrated IPL career. He played 40 Tests, 304 ODIs and 58 T20Is for India between 2000 and 2017, retiring in 2019.

Off the field he founded the YouWeCan Foundation, which works on cancer awareness and support — turning his own illness into a cause that has helped thousands of patients.

He was also among the IPL's first superstars, commanding record auction prices and producing some of the tournament's most memorable innings. His 2019 retirement closed a nineteen-year international career that had begun with the Under-19 World Cup and ended with two senior world titles — and few cricketers have been loved as purely as Yuvraj was at his peak — for the timing, the swagger, and the smile that returned after cancer.

Personal life

Yuvraj married actress Hazel Keech in 2016. They have two children. He has been open about the physical and mental toll of his cancer treatment and about the role his mother played in his recovery.

Legacy

Yuvraj Singh is remembered as the ultimate big-match player — the man for the final, the crisis, the impossible equation. The six sixes and the 2011 World Cup made him immortal; the cancer comeback made him something rarer: a sportsman whose courage off the field matched his genius on it.