Former India all-rounder Yuvraj Singh feels the innings could have been declared after Sachin Tendulkar scored a double century in the Multan test against Pakistan. On 29 March 2004, Virender Sehwag became the first Indian to score a triple century in Test cricket, playing a stormy innings of 309 runs on the second day of the Multan Test. But then India captain and current head coach Rahul Dravid decided to declare the first innings at 675/5 in 161.5 overs. The announcement saw Tendulkar return for an undefeated 194, six runs short of his double century. Tendulkar also wrote about this in his autobiography ‘Playing It My Way’.
He said: “We got a message in the middle that we have to play fast and we were going to declare. We could have scored six runs in another over and after that we bowled 8-10 overs. I don’t think any more.” Playing two overs would have made the difference in a Test match.”
Yuvraj said: “If it was the third or fourth day you would have had to put the team first and even when you were at 150 they could have declared. But it was decided differently. I think Sachin could have declared the innings after 200 races .
Yuvraj, who was the last player to be sent off for 59 in that match, scored a century in the following Test in Lahore. But his Test career never reached the glorious heights of his white-ball journey, scoring 1,900 runs in 40 Tests at an average of 33.92.
Yuvraj feels it became difficult to consistently score on a Test team full of veterans as he didn’t get a definite spot in the playing XI. Yuvraj, who retired from international cricket in 2019, felt that he was not meant to play 100 Tests for India.
He said: “Finally, when I got a chance to play Test cricket after Dada’s (Sourav Ganguly) retirement, I got cancer, which was unfortunate for me. I wanted to play 100 test matches, those fast bowlers. And I wanted hit for two days. I gave the Test everything, but it didn’t have to be.”