Sachin Tendulkar reveals he could not sleep after making 200 not out against South Africa

What’s the story?

On the 24^th of February 2010, Sachin Tendulkar reached a landmark, which not many fans thought they would live to see. Against South Africa at the Roop Singh Stadium in Gwalior, the right-hander became the first man to score a double hundred in a 50-over game to set a trend for the rest to follow.

There was wild celebrations all across the country for the Mumbaikar’s stupendous achievement and cricket associations too did not waste too much time to shower monetary rewards on the master batsman.

The man himself, all of 38-years young, lay on his bed, extremely tired after reaching the monumental mark and reveals in his autobiography, ‘Playing it My Way’, that he could not get sleep that night, part of the reason being he was really excited and other one being the surroundings of the hotel where he was put up.

"Back in the hotel, I was feeling really tired but, because of all the excitement, was unable to sleep. Lying awake in bed, I decided to check my phone and found that it was flooded with messages congratulating me and I spent two hours responding to them, a task that eventually took me two days to complete.

"I have to admit that there was another reason I could not sleep in Gwalior. The hotel authorities had very kindly given both Dhoni and me a suite each and these were located at a fair distance from the rooms of the rest of the team. My suite was enormous and even had a private swimming pool. The bathroom was gigantic and was separated from the main living room by a glass door. Outside there were huge trees and at night, with the silk curtains fluttering in the breeze, I didn't find it the most comfortable room to sleep in. It was pitch dark outside and the size of the room, together with the unfamiliar sights and sounds around, made me seriously uneasy and I had to keep the bathroom lights on all night!,” Tendulkar wrote in his book.

In case you didn’t know...

Tendulkar broke the record for the highest individual score of 194 which was jointly held by Saeed Anwar and Charles Coventry. The former got to the mark against India in a game at Chennai in 1997 while the latter equalled the mark against Bangladesh in 2009.

The heart of the matter

By the time 2010 had come around, Tendulkar was playing half the number of ODIs that he would usually play for India. Every game, hence, became very important for him as the build-up to the 2011 World Cup began to gain steam.

He was coming into the series against South Africa on the back of some fine performances in Bangladesh and more than anything, he was enjoying his batting, as was evident from the number of sixes he hit in his innings of 200 not out.

What’s next?

Tendulkar’s effort set the trend for the others who also in the coming years broke the 200-run barrier. Virender Sehwag went past his childhood idol’s mark when he made 219 against the West Indies. Rohit Sharma then eclipsed that score in his knock of 264 against Sri Lanka and then Chris Gayle and Martin Guptill made double tons of their own in the 2015 50-over World Cup.

Sportskeeda’s take

Tendulkar’s revelation is interesting as usually after such a marathon effort, players usually like to sleep and give their body enough time to recover. You don’t often see batsman bat the entire duration of a 50-over game and it surely does a toll on a player, regardless of the age to play the entire duration of an ODI game.