I have always dreamt of playing well here

It was almost a year ago in Mohali that Yuvraj Singh was called a pie-chucker by Englands Kevin Pietersen,and as the 28-year-old southpaw set the base for Indias win over Sri Lanka,memories of that encounter would have been fresh in his mind. After Sanath Jayasuriya and Kumar Sangakkara threatened to take the game away from Indias hands early on,the Chandigarh cricketer celebrated his 28th birthday in style,picking up three wickets in an encouraging spell before starring with the bat.

People have called me names before and it is not my job to focus on that. We needed to control the Sri Lankan batsmen and it was good to be among the wickets. Gary (Kirsten) has been working with me during the nets on both my batting and bowling and it helped me in this match. He is the best coach I have played under, said Yuvraj after the match. Virender and Gambhir had given us a good start and we were always in the game. A run-rate under 10 is always easy to maintain and the ball was coming nicely on the bat for me. Dhoni played a very good knock and we were handling the pace bowlers very well. Sehwags innings set the base for me to accelerate, said Yuvraj.

Yuvraj had played six international matches at his home ground and never won a Man of the Match award here,with a Test score of 84 runs against England being his best. I have always dreamt of playing well at this ground. I was seeing the ball well and I know the conditions very well. It feels good to come into a pressure situation and perform well in front of my home crowd, said Yuvraj.