Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina watched the Asia Cup as outsiders, hopefully realising how crucial a role their return to form could play in bringing Team India out of the hole it has slipped into.And the duo will have a chance to do that in a week's time, thanks to the World Twenty20 rope thrown by the selectors.
The abandoned third ODI on the tour of South Africa was Yuvraj's last international game, and Suresh Raina lost favour during the ODIs in New Zealand. But Sandeep Patil & Co. bank on their experience for the World Twenty20 in Bangladesh.
The bigger picture though is 'India'. Will these two be the balm for an Indian team that has beaten just Bangladesh and Afghanistan so far this year and ended tours of South Africa and New Zealand winless.
The answer could be yes, but only runs from their bat will eliminate the 'could be' from that statement. Of late, India has missed that stability in the middle order that the failure of Yuvraj and Raina has led to.
Once Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni failed, the team started searching for runs than scoring them. Ajinkya Rahane has lived up to that responsibility to some extent, and if Yuvraj and Raina can make their chance count, there won't be much Dhoni will have to worry about in Bangladesh.
It's never been a question of ruling the two southpaws out. They are firmly in the preferred pool of players for India's World Cup defence in 2015, but consistent failures led to selectors biting the bullet and drop them. Hopefully, the duo took it as a 'break' and not a psychological blow that the word 'drop' can inflict.
Raina has just one fifty-plus score in his previous 24 innings and Yuvraj was all at sea against Mitchell Johnson's pace in the ODI series against Australia at home last year...
Source: Cricket News
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