On the eve of his greatest triumph, scoring his LOOth hundred in front of his adoring Yorkshire public, Geoff Boycott could not sleep.
He tried watching television. When he went to bed he found the hotel room stiflingly hot. An hour before dawn broke over Leeds, Boycott called the night porter to show him how the air conditioning worked.
When he arrived at Headingley, Boycott felt dreadful. Then, 20 minutes into his innings, another feeling washed over him. He felt clear-headed, relaxed, in command. At ten minutes to six he drove Greg Chappell to the boundary and embraced history.
Was this an example of Boycott's grit taking him through or was his body clock accidentally clicking into gear just when he needed it to?
Nick Litdehales would go for the body clock. For nearly two decades he has been advising athletes on how to sleep.
He has never believed in the traditional eight hours' continuous sleep, arguing it creates unnatural rhythms that mean the least productive time for an office worker is between one and three in the afternoon. Three o'clock on any given Saturday is usually quite important for a sportsman. His most famous client is Cristiano Ronaldo.
“Anyone who has ever worked with Ronaldo knows that if you have a discussion in the corner of the room, he will come over and ask what you are talking about, ’ said Littlehales.
"I was invited to Real Madrid when Carlo Ancelotti became manager. I was standing on the edge of the pitch, talking to the Madrid staff, when Ronaldo ran over. He had been training all day and you would have expected him to run straight to the dressing room."
" But he was interested in what I was trying to do because as an athlete he has always invested in himself. From what I have learned from working with him, Ronaldo is not interested in fad diets, he is not interested in copying others. The only thing he is concerned with is: does it work forhim?"
Like all of his clients, Ronaldo is told to aim for five 90-minute 'sleeps'. An hour and a half before Ronaldo goes to bed, he will turn off his phone, stop watching television orany other screens.
"All you need is 10 centimetres of foam," said the man who works with athletes in the Tour de France, Giro d'ltalia and Vuelta a Espana.
Sir Bradley Wiggins won the Tour de France sleeping on a couple of pieces of foam - but sleeping correcdy. During the London Olympics, Sir Chris Hoy was given a five-star hotel room. The bed was unused. Hoy slept on the floor on a sleep kit, tailored to his body shape.
How much influence Littlehales wields depends on convincing key individuals. When he was asked to Arsenal's training ground at London Colney to discuss sleep, his presentation was being ridiculed unti 1 Th ierry H enry intervened.
One of the first people he wrote to, in the late 1990s, was legendary managerSir Alex Ferguson after hearing that Cary Pallister had been having problems with his back. And he credits the Manchester United boss for hearing him out when most others would not have and continued to work with the Scotsman, getting a reputation for himself in the process.
" I was lucky that one of the first people I wrote to about sleep was Alex Ferguson. With another manager, my letter would have gone straight in the bin.'