Nasser Hussain, while speaking on Sony Ten Pit Stop, recalled how his plan to silence the crowd in the third Test of England’s tour of India in 2001/02 resulted in Sachin Tendulkar‘s one and only stumping in Test cricket.

England had made 336 in their first innings, and though they had struck regularly in the reply, Tendulkar had reached 90 to take India to 173-5, with the hosts needing only a draw to seal the series and a fervent crowd cheering them on.

“It wasn’t a pre-set plan, that was something I came up with on the day,” Hussain said. “I knew when going to India – in those days there were very good Test match crowds in India – I knew that you had to silence the crowd.

“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.”

Ashley Giles played a key role in keeping the Little Master tied down, his figures at one point reading 28-16-38-0, and though Tendulkar managed to take full toll of his 29th over, plundering 12 runs, Giles would get his man in the 30th.

“That pitch in Banglaore 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.

“And 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.

“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.”

England could only draw the Test match in the end, with rain washing out the latter stages.