Former India skipper MS Dhoni was 'very happy' at the non-striker's end, said Yuvraj Singh as he recalled his brutal onslaught against English paceman Stuart Broad in the 2007 T20 World Cup.
Yuvraj, who was timing the ball with perfection, hammered Broad for six sixes in an over and became the only batsman to do so in a T20 International. The left-hander was the first Indian batsman and second overall after South Africa’s Herschelle Gibbs to achieve the feat in international cricket.
Yuvraj also revealed the chat which he had with England's Andrew Flintoff, just minutes before the world witnessed six maximums in as many deliveries.
“I think MS was very happy. If you’re the captain and the other guy is just hitting six after six, you’re just happy that the score is increasing and it was a must-win game,” Yuvraj told Gaurav Kapur in the ’22 Yarns’ podcast.
"I remember I hit two good boundaries off Flintoff which he obviously didn't like. He said something to me and I said something back. It was quite a serious fight at that time. The umpires also came in. I just felt like I wanted to hit every ball out of the park," Yuvraj revealed.
The ex-India all-rounder notched up a magnificent 12-ball half-century as India clinched the match by 18 runs. Dhoni's men went on to win the inaugural T20 spectacle by defeating arch-rivals Pakistan in the final at the Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg.
Almost 14 years after his carnage in Durban, Yuvraj revealed that Paul Collingwood had told Broad to bowl outside the off-stump as the boundary was bigger in that region.
"Luckily, the first ball I hit (off Broad) went out of the park. The second ball I hit went into the crowd. The third ball I hit over point, where I hadn't even hit a boundary in my career. Collingwood came and told Broad to keep bowling yorkers to me outside off-stump because the off-side was big.
"But Broad thought of bowling into my legs. So when he decided to do that, I knew he was in trouble. The fifth ball hit the toe of my bat, it was a small boundary that went over Flintoff. The sixth ball I knew he has to bowl a yorker. So I was ready to hit it straight and it was in my arc,” said Yuvraj.
“My first look was to Flintoff, giving him a cheeky smile. My second look was to Dimitri Mascarenhas sort of telling him that the scores are settled and then obviously I did a fist pump with Dhoni. It actually didn’t register to me that I had hit six sixes. For me, it was all about settling the scores with England," he further said.
