Yograj Singh, former India cricketer Yuvraj Singh's father, stirred quite a controversy on Sunday after his sensational interview went viral on social media where he accused former India captain MS Dhoni of "destroying" his son's career and took aim at 1983 World Cup-winning captain Kapil Dev of cutting short his India dreams. However, amid his controversial remarks, Yograj reckoned that his son Yuvraj should be honoured with the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award in the country.

Yuvraj represented India in 40 Test matches, 304 ODIs and 58 T20 internationals, scoring over 10,000 runs across formats. 1900 runs came in the traditional format at 33.92, with three centuries and 11 fifties. It was in the ODI format, that he gained most of his success, having scored 8701 runs at 36.55 with 14 centuries and 52 fifties, while also picking 111 wickets. In fact, he was only the third Indian player after Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly to feature on the 22-member list of having an ODI double of 5000 runs and 100 wickets.

However, his first international trophy success came in the inaugural edition of the T20 World Cup in 2007, when he hit six maximums in an over against Stuart Broad en route to helping India lift their first world title since 1983. Four years later, he produced a memorable campaign in India's victorious 2011 ODI World Cup triumph with an all-rounder performance—362 runs, 15 wickets, and four Man-of-the-Match awards—that earned him the Player of the Tournament award.

Speaking to Zeeswitch, Yograj reckoned that his son should be honoured with the Bharat Ratna for playing the ODI World Cup and delivering one of the most iconic performance while battling with cancer.

“India should award Yuvraj Singh the Bharat Ratna for playing with Cancer and winning the World Cup for the country,” he said.

India batting legend Sachin Tnedulkar remains the only sportsperson to be awarded the Bharat Ratna. Winning it at the age of 40 in 2014, he became the youngest recipient of the award.

Harbhajan Singh's big revelation on Yuvraj Singh from 2011 World Cup

Talking to Star Sports in 2023, on the anniversary of the 2011 World Cup title win, former India cricketer Harbhajan Singh recalled how Yuvraj used to keep coughing in the middle of the pitch during matches, only to later find out that he had lung cancer.

"Yuvraj was unwell and he used to face anxiety before matches. Even while batting he used to cough, and sometimes puke. I used to ask him 'why do you cough so much? Look at your age and what are you doing!' But we didn't know what he was going through, and he played the World Cup during that illness.

"Later he found out those were signs of cancer. But then we were making fun of him as we were not aware of the situation, but hats off to the champion," he said.

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