The Test of My Life by Yuvraj Singh, Sharda Ugra & Nishant Jeet Arora
Title: The Test of My Life
Authors: Yuvraj Singh, Sharda Ugra, Nishant Jeet Arora
Disclaimer: I will be a little biased towards this book because I personally am a fan of Yuvraj Singh and the game of cricket.
I read this book not as a memoir or a book of autobiography genre. I read it solely because I like Yuvraj Singh and have been a fan of his sixes. I read it just like an Indian who can go crazy by an Indian win be it ODIs, tests or T20s. I read it as an Indian who went crazy on the day of 2nd April 2011, when Dhoni lifted the ICC Cricket World Cup after 28 long years. I read it as just another cricket fan in India who rejoiced along with million other Indians on that Saturday night. I picked up this book to know more about the man of the series of this tournament. It was an amazing experience just going through those balls and runs through Yuvraj's voice and the memories came to picture again.
In this book, Yuvraj Singh talks to you. Though there have been editing done by the Sharda Ugra of CricInfo fame and help from Yuvraj Singh's manager and friend Nishant Arora, the reader feels connected to the voice and experience of Yuvraj Singh. Yuvraj Singh was diagnosed with seminoma, a rare form of germ cell cancer and Yuvraj Singh takes you through this journey of recovery from the day of his symptoms showing up, his struggles, diagnosis, procedures, recovery after the tumor was removed, and his struggle back again to form and to be a part of the Indian Cricket team.
This book is divided various sections. In the first section, he talks of his heavy cricket training under the tutelage of his father and cricket background during his early growing up days. This was a very touching section. There is a continuous reference to running, falling, dusting off and running again.Second section talks of his days when he played for India and how he became a heartthrob for a lot of cricket fans. The third section is the main section which talks of his journey and how C changed from cricket to cancer. Even though he knew something was wrong with his body, he kept procrastinating as playing for his country was on the top of his list. The later sections all talk of his ways to recovery and his mom's struggles and prayers.
When Yuvraj Singh was down with cancer, he had picked up book by Lance Armstrong and had been very inspired by the book. So he wrote this book to serve as an inspiration to another suffering cancer patient who would have been emotionally suffering too. I'm sure anyone who has read it may surely have been inspired and his purpose is truly served. Hence I would like to ignore the editing which may look disfigured to just any other memoir reader. Also the sequence of events may seem too confusing to some. But I'm going to intentionally ignore all that for I have been truly inspired. Also I would like to mention that Yuvraj after his battle with cancer and coming out of it triumphantly found YouWeCan an NGO which helps in early detection of cancer and already has plans to take it to remote village level. It is managed by his manager and the co-author of this book Nishant.
Another notable thing about the book is its Acknowledgement List which runs on and on. I'm quite awed that Yuvraj has not forgotten to mention any person whom he is truly grateful to. It is a must read if you are a fan of Yuvraj or the game of cricket or if you were also one among the billion Indians who wept when Dhoni scored that winning six to win the most prestigious World Cup title.
Rating: 4/5(Must Read)
