24th April 2023 marks the 50th birthday of Sachin Tendulkar.
During his illustrious career spanning 24 years, Tendulkar broke several records, which he holds till date. He played 200 Tests and 463 ODIs for India, scoring the world record number of runs (15921 in Tests and 18426 in ODIs) and centuries (51 in Tests and 49 in ODIs).
Sachin also holds the record for being the first man to score 10,000 runs in ODI cricket, first and only batter to score 100 international centuries, first male cricketer to score a double ton in ODIs, most matches played in both formats among others.
As he turned 50, Tendulkar opened up on the various factors revolving around his career, including a back injury that troubled him in the 1990s.
“My back injury troubled me a lot and that continued for quite some time, almost 10 months or so. Though I played matches in between, with a lot of pain and discomfort. For almost three to four months, I slept in my hotel rooms between my bed and the cupboard so that I could not roll onto my tummy, I had to rest my back completely, get my handbag, put a couple of pillows inside the handbag and put those pillows under my knee so that the back would rest. Otherwise, my back would constantly stay like this into spasm (shows how he’d lie down through hand gestures). So once I lifted my knees, the back would become flat and the back would rest and that is exactly what the doctors had asked me to do,” Tendulkar told News18 Cricketnext in an exclusive chat.
The batting legend further said that he had to take "three painkillers a day" to reduce the discomfort. In fact, he feared the end of his glittering career after picking up the back injury.
"I would take painkillers as if there was no tomorrow, literally three painkillers a day, before every session I would take one painkiller and go out to play. I pushed my body to the limit, and then I was also advised that I should undergo major surgery," Sachin said.
"Back in the 90s, today with the technology and multiple things happening around in the medical field back surgery was a big one but not kind of the end of your career. But at that stage, I was so worried, it could possibly be the end of my career if the surgery went bad. I was struggling because I had suffered so much while standing I could not even go and touch my knees, I couldn't bend at all, if I had to sit in a chair like this, it wouldn't be longer than 2-3 minutes at a stretch. I had to keep changing my positions, which was a nightmare [sic]. Possibly that I would say," he added.
Sachin Tendulkar played an instrumental role in India’s 2011 World Cup triumph. He was the second highest run-getter in the showpiece tournament with 482 runs from 9 matches.
The batting maestro retired from international cricket in 2013. After his retirement, he was conferred with India’s highest civilian award – Bharat Ratna.