After sitting out of Tests, Yuvraj warms up to make a point

On Friday though, he put on a 154-minute show for his team mates and a handful of spectators resting under the Sathi Cooraswamy stand, hammering 172 off just 121 deliveries as India warmed up for the one-day series with an authoritative victory over the Sri Lankan Invitational XI.

The Indian vice-captain, walking in at his favourite number four slot, hammered 13 sixes and eight boundaries, showing a distinct bias towards the long-on and mid-wicket boundaries. And at the end of the game, he stood tall and proud, despite the sore back that kept him off the field for most of the second half of the game.

“There’s always the motivation to score runs whether I am in the team or not,” he said. Having been left out of the Test side, Yuvraj spent his time in Chandigarh, working on his weak knee, shoulder and form with the bat. And loud as the statement he made on the field was, he chose the safest sequence of words facing up to the media after that.

“Today, I just concentrated on the conditions, the wicket and the bowling attack. I am happy with my first outing, and hopefully I can continue in the same vein in the remainder of the series,” he said.

The left-hander, who walked in at 73/2, hit anything that was pitched up, or short. And once he settled in, he took to playing deliveries on the rise as well.

He hit anything that was on middle and leg when he started off, and then ferociously drove between covers and point. He blasted the fast bowlers, both left-arm and right-arm, before settling in for the spinners. And though the end result looks like mayhem, there was a method in that madness.

His first 50 came in 93 minutes off 70 balls with one boundary and two sixes — a part of his innings during which he was squared up and made to hop. With four sixes and six sixes, his next 50 — which took him to the three-figure-mark — took him just 25 deliveries. And after his century, he started refusing singles even to his captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who remained as much of a footnote in the innings as any of Yuvraj’s previous partners.

“It was a slightly double-paced wicket and I initially thought 270 would be a good total, but the shots kept coming off,” said Yuvraj, who bombarded part-timer Jehan Mubarak for four back-to-back sixes. Dhoni had faced the first ball of the over, so six sixes was out of question. There was enough entertainment on view for that little glitch to matter though.