The 2004 Multan Test between India and Pakistan is remembered for Virender Sehwag’s knock of 309 runs where he became the first Indian batter to score a triple century in Test cricket.
In the very same game Sachin Tendulkar scored 194 runs. However when the Master Blaster was six runs away from reaching his double ton, stand-in skipper Rahul Dravid decided to declare the innings, leaving fans and cricket pundits perplexed. 18 years later, former India batter Yuvraj Singh has now said that Tendulkar should have been allowed to get his 200.
Rahul Dravid had decided to declare the innings with India’s score at 675/5. The declaration came immediately after Yuvraj Singh got dismissed after playing a knock of 59.
“We got a message in between that we had to play fast, and we were going to declare. He could have got those six runs in another over and we bowled 8-10 overs after that. I do not think another two overs would have made a difference to the Test match,” Yuvraj said on Sports 18.
“If it was the third or the fourth day, you have to put the team first and they would have declared when you were at 150. There is a difference of opinion. I think the team could have declared after his 200,” he further stated.
India had won the Multan Test by an innings and 52 runs. The Indian team won the series 2-1 and this was the side’s first Test series win on Pakistan soil.
Yuvraj had scored a century in the next Test at Lahore and he had scored over 200 runs at an impressive average of 57.50 in the three-Test series. Yuvraj, who has 26 first-class centuries to his name, feels that he did not get a long rope in Test cricket.
“If you compare that era to today’s era, you can see players getting 10-15 matches. You look at that era, you could open like the way Viru started it. After that Dravid, Sachin, Ganguly, and Laxman. I got a hundred in Lahore and in the next Test I was told to open,” said Yuvraj.
“Eventually, when I got opportunities to play Test cricket after Dada’s retirement, I got diagnosed with cancer. It has just been bad luck. I tried 24×7. I wanted to play 100 Test matches, face those fast bowlers, and bat for two days. I gave it everything, but it was not meant to be,” he stated.
Yuvraj Singh played 40 Tests in his career, scoring 1,900 runs at an average of 33.92. The left-handed batter had played a key role in 2007 T20 World Cup and 2011 50-over World Cup wins. Yuvraj had called time on his international career in 2019.
