Yuvraj Singh has never been the type to dress up discomfort in soft language. And in a recent podcast chat with former Indian tennis star Sania Mirza, the 2011 World Cup hero laid out – plainly – what it felt like to keep playing when the joy had drained out of the game.
For Yuvraj, it wasn’t one bad series or one rough phase. It was a deeper exhaustion – mental, physical, and emotional – where the sport began to feel like an obligation that was taking more than it was giving.
“I was not enjoying my game. I had a feeling that why am I playing cricket when I’m not enjoying it? I was not feeling supported. I was not feeling respected. And I felt, why do I need to do this when I don’t have this? To prove what? I can’t do more than this, mentally or physically, and it was hurting me. And the day I stopped, I was myself again,” Yuvraj Singh said.
It is a confession that cuts through the glamorous afterlife of elite sport – the part fans don’t see when the spotlight moves on. The repeated why in his words isn’t rhetorical flair; it reads like the loop an athlete gets trapped in when performances fade, bodies tighten, and the environment stops feeling safe. And the line that lands hardest is the simplest one: stopping didn’t break him – it brought him back.
In the same conversation, Yuvraj Singh also looked back at an earlier moment for his teenage years, when doubts were raised about his talent. But instead of bitterness, he offered perspective – more about timing and perception than personal insult.
“Now, when I look back at it, I just think he didn’t have the time to have a proper look at me. He was just like being nice to my dad. Then obviously, he was playing for India at that time, so he probably would have said that. I was 13-14 at that time, just figuring out a sport. I don’t take it personally, but my father took it personally,” he said.
The subtext is familiar in Indian sport: early judgments can echo for years, not always in the athlete’s mind, but within families chasing validation. Yuvraj, though, frames it as something he outgrew, without denying the weight it carried at home.
