Remember the time when Sachin Tendulkar wore a floppy hat to hide his skin allergy?

Remember the time when Sachin Tendulkar wore a floppy hat to hide his skin allergy?

Sachin Tendulkar

Those who watched Sachin Tendulkar play would certainly remember the time when Sachin Tendulkar used to wear a floppy hat. But few knows that he did that not just out of style but to hide a skin allergy and to prevent that part of the face from coming into direct contact with harsh sun rays.

This happened during the 2007-08 tour of Australia. India landed on Sinapore en route to Australia and wanted to kill time by shopping during the halt for a few hours. Tendulkar and former off-spinner Harbhajan Singh purchased some moisturizing creams keepin in mind the rough Australian weather.

For a few days, the cream worked well however one day, when Tendulkar had gone to bed after applying the moisturizing cream, woke up with a sudden burning sensation on his face. It got worse in the morning. He remembered covering his face with a towel next day thinking it could be the side effects of the detergent on the towel.

Sachin couldn’t figure it out the real reason behind this. Harbhajan Singh also had applied the cream and nothing happened to him. To relieve the pain, he applied some more cream on his face and soon his face turned red. Team India was to play a Test in Sydney so he decided to consult a skin doctor. The doctor had given him an ointment.

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Sachin Tendulkar’s style later became his treadmark

Sachin Tendulkar
Sachin Tendulkar and Harbhajan Singh

He started applying ointment which gave relief to Tendulkar and helped him recover quickly. But during that time when his face was red, the India batter was embarrassed to go in public. He started wearing the floppy had and would apply a little more of zinc sunscreen to cover up. This style later became his trademark.

But this didn’t affect his performance as he scored a hundred in the Test. But the team lost the controversial Test series when the Monkeygate scandal and poor umpiring marred it. But Sachin remained the leading run-scorer with 493 runs in four matches, with two hundreds and two fifties, at an average of 70.42.

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