Batting first, India got off a good start. But the innings started losing momentum midway through. They needed a strong finish and this swashbuckling left-hander provided just that. He stood tall, drove with power, pulled with panache, and played what turned out to be the match-winning innings. He did not stop there. In the field, he pulled off a stunning catch at cover and later, a terrific direct hit to dismiss the opposition’s finisher extraordinaire.

This was Yuvraj Singh, 18 years of age, and winning a knock-out match for India against the then world champions Australia. Back in 2000, when the event was called ICC Knockout Cup, he shone with the bat but stole the limelight with his fielding.

Fast forward 17 years, India are facing Pakistan in the Champions Trophy. Yuvraj does not stand at point anymore. He does not dive around, plucking catches out of thin air. Batsmen hit it in the general direction of Yuvraj and take off for a single, as Azhar Ali did at Edgbaston. At one point, he was standing at third man and a lofted shot from the same batsman landed a few inches in front of him. Yuvraj neither went for the catch nor could he stop boundary. It was lazy. “Don’t look at Virat,” advised Sourav Ganguly from the commentary box.

At 35, he is not the fielder he once was anymore. Not even close. But 17 years later, what has not changed, is his uncanny ability to step up in a high-stakes global tournament with the bat in his hand. The style, an unquantifiable parameter, has not waned one bit. He was man of the match then, in 2000 against Australia, in his first innings in ODIs. He was man of the match on Sunday, in 2017 against Pakistan, in his 272nd ODI innings.

A lot has happened in those 17 years and 271 innings in between. It has not been a career of just highs. He has been dropped, he has made numerous comebacks, with varying degrees of success, on the cricket field. But almost every time you put him in a big match in a big tournament, he has a knack of delivering.

Leading up to the Pakistan match, however, his place in the XI was questioned. And rightly so. Here was a man who missed matches in the IPL due to injuries, who went down with a viral infection when he reached England, who did not face a single ball in the two warm-up matches leading up to the tournament. Dinesh Karthik, meanwhile, was staking his claim in the middle order. One can only wonder whether Kohli had any dilemma over accommodating Karthik in the line up, but one can also safely assume that if Yuvraj was fit enough, Kohli was always going to pick him, eyes closed.

He was proved right. With Rohit Sharma getting run out just when he broke the shackles, and with Kohli himself struggling to find his timing. India’s scoring rate was hovering around the five-runs-per-over mark for the majority of the innings, partly because of a cautious start and partly because of the start-stop nature of the innings. The innings needed momentum, and Kohli was struggling to provide it. Out walked Yuvraj and turned the game around. The dropped catch when he was on eight was perhaps the one moment that swung the match in India’s favour. He started timing the ball, he drove and cut Wahab Riaz, he pulled Mohammad Amir, he hit a straight drive off a yorker from Hasan Ali and held his pose in the follow-through, allowing the world one extra moment to admire that shot.

What that innings from Yuvraj did was to give Kohli the push he needed. Starting with a six over long on to bring up his fifty, Kohli went: 6 1 4 4 6 1 0 4 6 0 4 to finish the innings. That’s the sort of impact a clean-hitter like Yuvraj can have on the match, which was not lost on Kohli.

“The way Yuvi batted, it was the game-changing innings, to be honest. That gave all of us the confidence to start striking the ball well. The way he batted was the way only he can strike the ball. Hitting low full-tosses for fours and sixes, and even digging out yorkers for fours, was outstanding. That gave me a bit of time to settle in from the other end.”  

And with this match-winning knock, Yuvraj now has nine man-of-the-match awards in ICC tournaments, just one behind Sachin Tendulkar’s 10.

“I felt like a club cricketer watching Yuvi bat,” said Kohli after the match. The Indian captain is known for coming up with these one-liners that make for great headlines, especially when it comes to talking about cricketers who are senior to him. Even if there is a hint of exaggeration to it, one cannot help but feel, at that moment, when he saw the straight drive from Yuvraj Singh’s bat fly past him, Kohli would have thought to himself: this is why India needs Yuvraj.

What can one do but nod in agreement.