It's said that good players play in the V, but at Madras Sachin Tendulkar gave a masterclass of batting despite hardly scoring a run between mid-off and mid-on. Our graph shows that Tendulkar scored only five runs in the V, with most of his runs coming square of the wicket, mainly through scything drives and punches past point or cover and a series of majestic pulls off Darren Gough and Matthew Hoggard.

In all, 41 of Tendulkar's 68 runs (that's over 60%) came on the leg side; this despite England settling exclusively for a line in the corridor. Almost 80% of their deliveries to Tendulkar pitched outside off stump.

If England did get one thing wrong, it was their length. Twenty-five deliveries to Tendulkar were short of a length, and 13 of those came from Hoggard. Those 13 went for 19 runs, including that extraordinary one-handed swat over midwicket.

But when Tendulkar bats like this, there is little anyone can do. He played 37 balls off the front foot and 37 off the back (as well as five from which he demonstrated minimal footwork), and scored 34 runs off the front foot, and 34 off the back. The symmetry was perfect; the innings wasn't far off it either.

Rob Smyth is on the staff of Wisden.com.

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