28 July,2011 12:46 PM IST | | ANI
Indian batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar has always been a master at sizing up a bowler and working out his gameplan accordingly, but England fast bowler James Anderson has been clever enough to keep him guessing, former England captain Nasser Hussain has said.
"What we saw in the second innings at Lord's was the product of some smart bowling from Anderson, who dragged Tendulkar across his stumps with his out swinger. The Indian's concern was to avoid nicking to the cordon, as he has done three times in Tests against Anderson - at Mumbai, The Oval and Mohali," Hussain wrote in an article for the Daily Mail.
"So, he ended up covering the potential out swing by getting his head outside the line of off stump. And that's when the England star sprung his second-innings surprise, bringing one back up the slope and hitting Tendulkar in front of middle stump with the batsman's weight over to the off-side."
"The ball passed the inside edge and Tendulkar, who had been lucky to escape an lbw shout from Stuart Broad, was on his way," he added.
Hussain further said that Tendulkar enjoys getting to grips with a predictable bowler, but there's no discernible change of action between Anderson's out swinger and in swinger.
"It's a serious skill. He's been maturing for a while as a bowler and I believe he has loved that label of being attack leader since Andrew Flintoff and Steve Harmison left the scene," Hussain wrote.
"At Lord's, he was too good even for Tendulkar. And it's not often we've been able to say that about the Little Master," he added.
