In the second innings at Lord's Sachin Tendulkar was yorked by Matthew Hoggard - and Yorkied too, not for the first time. In fact, it was the fifth time in his last six Test innings against England that Tendulkar had fallen to Yorkshire bowlers. Maybe his indifferent season as Yorkshire's first overseas player, in 1992, is still haunting him. Or maybe Yorkshiremen of the world have united to take their revenge.

Since the start of last winter's Test series in India, Hoggard has dismissed Tendulkar three times, and Richard Dawson and Craig White have also scalped him once each. The only exception is the most high-profile dismissal of all - when Tendulkar was stumped off Ashley Giles at Bangalore.

All this, and Darren Gough hasn't even loosened his muscles to bowl to Tendulkar in a Test: he was dropped for the 1996 series, opted out of last winter's tour, and missed this one through injury. It's not as if England's attack is overwhelmed with Yorkies either. Potentially, there's Andy Caddick, Alex Tudor, Andrew Flintoff and Simon Jones. But it's the Yorkshiremen, or the honorary Yorkshiremen, who have done the damage. And even Yorkshire's youngest-ever player, Paul Jarvis, dismissed Tendulkar twice in one-day internationals back in 1992-93, a total no Englishman has exceeded. Maybe Michael Vaughan will have his turn next.

There might be another curse at work, too. Tendulkar has only failed to make a fifty in four of his 13 Tests against England … and three of them have been at Lord's, where his scores have been 10, 27, 31, 16 and 12. (His scores in ODIs here are 1 and 14.) It might be a stage set for a little master, but Lord's has not yet seen the best of Tendulkar. Not in international cricket anyway - he did smash 125 off Messrs McGrath, Donald and Kumble in the Princess Diana memorial match in 1998.

Rob Smyth is on the staff of Wisden.com.

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