When Sachin Tendulkar is at his best, even good balls disappear to the boundary. In recent times though, burdened by expectations, he has often been over-cautious. Today however, he found a happy balance. First, he unerringly punished the loose balls. The 22 half-volleys he got went for 28 runs, and 33 short balls went for 28. But he also made sure that good-length deliveries counted for runs as well, hitting 56 off the 128 such balls that he faced. He took frequent singles – 32 of them – and played 139 dot balls – at 71% of his total, that was better than his figure for the series, which is 81%.

The only plan bowlers the world over have conjured up in recent times has been to try and restrain him, and as in the first innings, there were a fair amount of balls designed to make him swish outside the off stump. As many as 178 off the 195 balls he faced – 91% - were pitched outside off. Many of these were delivered from over the wicket by the right-handed pacemen and were on off or off-and-middle by the time they reached him, which explains the equitable distribution of runs he managed: 62 on off and 52 on leg. He had an in-control percentage of 83%, and will have to continue in the same vein tomorrow if India is to regain control of this Test.

Amit Varma is assistant editor of Wisden.com in India.

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