‘He was so generous and kind to me’ – Suresh Raina recalls Yuvraj Singh’s words after his maiden Test ton on debut

Suresh Raina’s Test career never flourished as he played only 18 matches where he scored 768 runs at an average of 26.48. His journey in the longer format ended after he bagged a pair against Australia back in 2015 at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

However, parking aside the disappointments, the southpaw had an impressive start to his Test sojourn back in 2010. Raina scored a century on debut against Sri Lanka at the SSC in Colombo. His 120-run knock was laced with 12 fours and two sixes before Ajantha Mendis dismissed him.

In the meantime, Raina went down memory lane and recalled Yuvraj Singh’s pieces of words before his debut. The left-hander made the revelations to sports presenter Gaurav Kapur on his ’22 Yarns with Gaurav Kapur’ podcast uploaded on Spotify.

I could not sleep the entire night: Suresh Raina

“Just before my Test debut, he (Yuvraj Singh) called me in the night around 12:30 or 1 clock at night. He said ‘Suresh, I am not able to sleep; I think I may have a stomach bug or something. You should be ready’.

“Generally, no one says like this, they usually think we will see how things go in the morning. He was so generous and kind to me to tell me that I should be ready,” Raina told.

“I could not sleep the entire night – thinking I might make my debut the next day, how will I go about it. It has not been discussed in the team meeting. I am not prepared. I don’t even know if I will make my debut or not.

“After I scored a hundred, Yuvi paa came up to me and he hugged me. ‘This is you, well done, I am so happy for you,’ he said to me,” Raina added.

In the same innings, Sachin Tendulkar had also notched a double century. The game was eventually drawn and Kumar Sangakkara got the Player of the Match award for his 219-run knock.

As far as Raina was concerned, he retired from international cricket back in August 2020 but has continued playing for the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the Indian Premier League (IPL).