England resorted to a ruthless leg-stump line to quieten Sachin Tendulkar on the second day at Bangalore. While Andrew Flintoff went round the wicket and tried to bounce the Little Master into silence, Ashley Giles settled swiftly into an ultra-defensive groove, bowling virtually everything outside Tendulkar's leg stump to the disgust of the purists. Over 91% of Giles's deliveries to Tendulkar pitched outside leg; for the rest of the batsmen the figure was 36%. And in a sense it worked: Tendulkar is still there, but he didn't cause the havoc he might have done - off Giles he scored only 14 runs off 57 balls, 52 of which were dot-balls.

Flintoff managed to keep him in check too, though these things are relative - Tendulkar still managed a run every two balls (12 off 24). Flintoff's tactics were pretty similar to Giles's - he gave Tendulkar 17 deliveries that pitched on leg and middle or further towards leg, as opposed to only two to the other batsmen. All that differed was the length: Giles's was good (55 out of 57 deliveries to Tendulkar); Flintoff's short (18 out of 23).

Flintoff fared a lot better than his fellow seamers. Craig White and Matthew Hoggard settled for convention and pitched on or around off stump to Tendulkar - between them, they went for 24 runs off 22 balls.

England's tactics caused some consternation, but you can see why they did it. Tendulkar scored 24 off 21 off-side deliveries; from those that pitched outside leg he managed 16 off 58. Whichever way you look at it, England's gameplan did what it was supposed to do. Now all they have to do is get him out.

Rob Smyth is on the staff of Wisden.com

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