How Nasser Hussain orchestrated Sachin Tendulkar’s only Test stumping

The great Sachin Tendulkar has been out stumped just once in his Test career and it required a brilliant piece of thinking on former England captain Nasser Hussain’s part to dismiss the batting genius. India and England were playing the third Test of the series in 2001 in Bengaluru and with the home team in a spot of bother at 121/4, Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag were determined to bat India back in the match.

With Tendulkar approaching a century, he went after Ashley Giles – who was constantly bowling on the batsmen’s legs – and was out stumped (for the first time in 143 Test innings) by wicketkeeper James Foster for 90. 19 years on, Hussain revealed that his plan was to get under the skin of the crowd, which he believed was bound to have an effect on the batsman.

“If Sehwag and Tendulkar are smashing you everywhere and the crowd going ballistic, ‘Sachin, Sachin!’ echoing around the ground, I would look into my bowlers’ eyes and they would be a little bit gone. So I knew the key was to silence the crowd, take the crowd out of the equation. And the only way to do that was to stop Sachin scoring,” Hussain said on the Sony Ten Pit Stop.

“That pitch in Bangalore as well, there was a bit of rough there, but nothing on the main pitch, it was an absolute belter,” Hussain added. “If our bowlers had just bowled on the normal bit of the pitch, it would have done nothing. So I got Ashley [Giles], who was bowling a tight line and not just chucking it wide down leg stump. Ashley got close to the stumps and bowled quite a tight line and try to hit that rough.”

With Giles operating over the wicket, Tendulkar went down the wicket to break the shackles but missed the ball as Foster collected it and whipped the bails. England were criticised of bowling a ‘negative line’, but Hussain could care less. He walked away with a 0-1 loss, when many had predicted a 0-3 whitewash for England. After being drubbed by 10 wickets in the first Test in Mohali, England did well to manage draws in the second and third Tests, even though rain played a part in the final match in Bengaluru.

“Sachin being Sachin, went, ‘Hold on, this is quite a cunning plan, I better just kick it away for a while.’ And obviously then the crowd went quiet and I think someone was there from England who said this is an absolute disgrace, England are using negative tactics. But it was just to silence the crowd. And it was the only time that Sachin got stumped. In the end, he had enough and ran down the pitch and got stumped by James Foster,” Hussain said.

“And people have given that to me as a win. Sachin got 90 (laughs), how is getting Sachin Tendulkar out for 90 a win? Maybe India only got something like 300 (238) in the innings on a flat pitch at Bangalore and that was my win.”