Whenever the cricket career of Yuvraj Singh is discussed, there are two key highlights, the 2011 Cricket World Cup and the 2007 T20I World Cup, with him giving his career best performances in each of the tournaments.

Regarding his performance in the 2007 tournament, the only thing that comes up is the six sixes he hit against England in Stuart Broad’s over while the final against Pakistan was carried by Irfan Pathan and Gautam Gambhir. Although everyone remembers Gambhir’s performance as the highlight of the finals, Yuvraj says Rohit Sharma’s knock was important too.

In an interview to Sportskeeda, Yuvraj talked about a 20-year-old Rohit Sharma’s performance in the final. He said, “Everyone talks about myself or Gautam but nobody remembers that Rohit scored 36 off 18 or 20 balls in the final, which actually got us to 160. That was the most important knock of the tournament. Irfan took 3 wickets and was the Man of the Match but I think Rohit’s inning was very special in the finals.”

Rohit had smashed 30 runs of 16 balls and his knock included two sixes. The current vice-captain had made his debut against South Africa replacing Yuvraj who was recovering from an elbow injury.

Yuvraj said, “It was just that the natural talent had been put on to the World stage. Guys like Robin Uthappa, who would have played a bit before that. Rohit’s first tournament, he had just come in the side, hadn’t played much cricket.”

He also talked about how legends such as Zaheer Khan and Virender Sehwag did get a proper farewell they deserved after playing for the country for so long. He said, “Giving someone a farewell, that’s not for me to decide. It’s up to the BCCI. But I felt the way that they managed me towards the end of my career, was very unprofessional.”

He added, “But looking back at some of the great players from India – Harbhajan [Singh], [Virender] Sehwag, Zaheer Khan – were also badly mismanaged. It’s part of Indian cricket, I have seen that in the past so I wasn’t really surprised.”