Yuvraj not ‘nocturnal’ anymore
Yuvraj Singh has made a decent start to the IPL with a half-century in the only innings for Sunrisers Hyderabad. But it is the lighter side of his personality which is not often seen.
While he does share details of his personal life via his social media profiles — he recently shared a video pranking SRH teammate Shikhar Dhawan on April Fool’s Day — none have had as much detail as an interview posted to YouTube by Gaurav Kapur, as part of the television presenter’s Breakfast with Champions series.
It starts with Yuvraj’s response to Zaheer Khan, in a previous episode, saying that the southpaw is incapable of cooking. Yuvraj retorts that Zaheer had eaten omelettes made by himself and should be ashamed to make such claims.
There are jokes about flexible gluten-free toast and admissions that his wife Hazel Keech is the only English bowler he could not beat amid hilarious outtakes of Yuvraj lighting the kitchen stove with his backside. After Yuvraj proves that he can cook by successfully boiling water, he sits down with Gaurav to have a conversation.
It begins on a serious note with Yuvraj opening up about how cancer changed his life.
“It actually humbles you. It makes you realise that anything can happen in life. You got to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. I think I just appreciate life a little more after that. Everything was cricket, cricket, cricket. Now life, friends, family, I look forward to these things. I look forward to having a future with my wife. It was a nightmare, a blessing, a huge change, I don’t know what it was but it was something that was pretty devastating and I’m proud of how I came out of it,” he continued.
After admitting that he got a bit emotional talking about the illness, Yuvraj urges Gaurav to lighten the conversation. The two joke about the fact that they aren’t “nocturnal” anymore and that their parties don’t last later than 1am.
“Age, time, marriage. Basically, marriage. I think with time, we have evolved,” Yuvraj said. “First we lost a sister (to marriage), then another one followed her. I just feel that there is a time for everything. We had a lot of fun for 10-15 years with our friends. Now we are settled and we have fun now anyway. But we feel like sleeping a lot more now. You feel sleepier after crossing the age of 35,” he admitted.