Yuvraj, who retired from international cricket in 2019 after being out of international contention for two years, said that he wasn’t entirely surprised by the treatment he received towards the end of this career, claiming that some of his illustrious 2011 World Cup-winning teammates were also dealt with similarly.

“I just felt that the way they managed me towards the end of my career was very unprofessional,” Yuvraj said on Sportskeeda’s Free-Hit. “But looking back at a couple of great players like Harbhajan (Singh), (Virender) Sehwag, Zaheer Khan, also very badly mismanaged.

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“So it is part of Indian cricket, I had seen it in the past and I was not really surprised.”

One of India’s key components in their limited-overs setup through the 2000s, Yuvraj’s India career hit a rugged road after the 2011 World Cup, where he ended as the Player of the Tournament. After the tournament, Yuvraj, despite recovering from a serious illness, played just 31 of his 304 ODIs over the next six years.

Yuvraj scored a combined 6,833 runs at positions 4 to 7 during the 2000s. pic.twitter.com/ReNXluytL0

— Wisden India (@WisdenIndia) May 30, 2020

He urged the team to be more respectful of matchwinners in the future, citing the example of former teammates Gambhir and Sehwag, among others, who weren’t given a proper farewell by the team.

“In the future, anybody who has played for India for a long time and has been through tough situations, you should definitely honour him,” he said. “Give him that respect, somebody like Gautam Gambhir, who has won two World Cups for us. Sehwag, who has been the biggest match-winner after Sunil Gavaskar in Tests. VVS (Laxman), Zaheer (Khan) also.”