"It's always a pleasure to get a century," said an elated Yuvraj. "It's taken a lot of time (the century), but you also have to see where I'm coming from. I haven't played much cricket over the last four-five months. Not after the IPL. The IPL doesn't give you many opportunities to score big runs, but that's not an excuse. Hopefully, I don't have to wait that much longer for my next century now.
Let's see what's in store," the skipper added.
Yuvraj, who scored his last century (131) for Punjab in the Ranji Trophy against Madhya Pradesh in Gwalior last December, said he was confident after having worked hard on his fitness. "It's the first game of the season and everything fell in place. I'd worked quite hard in the off-season and I was looking good, I was confident," the left-hander said.
Yuvraj said his passion for the game had kept him motivated while being away from the game. "I'm too passionate about the game. In the IPL, I had a back injury and I was struggling with it and things didn't go my way. I just wanted to work hard on my fitness. I worked hard when I came back from cancer and it took a while for my body to get 100% fit. The doctors said it would take me about a year to get fully fit. My body's improved a lot," he said.
Having focused on his fitness, Yuvraj felt he was fitter, sharper and stronger now. "I shed a few kilos. I wasn't that heavy when I went. I just wanted to get my sharpness on the field. I worked on a couple of things, running between the wickets, getting quicker, my strength. I'm definitely feeling a lot stronger and quicker on the ground," he said.
"I got an opportunity to play. I don't know about four-day cricket, Test matches, I'm just happy playing."
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