Gameplan is to attack spinners - Vijay

M Vijay is difficult to slot into one genre of batting. He has T20 hundreds, but is one of the best defensive batsmen going around in Test cricket. He strikes at around 46 runs per 100 balls, but is already only one six short of getting into the top 10 six-hitting Test openers. Only one of the 10 ahead of him is a defensive batsman: Navjot Sidhu, who similarly attacked spinners.

Just like the cricketer that he is, Vijay is an emotional person, but doesn't open up with many. Having addressed a press conference after scoring his eighth Test century, one that put India in command in the Mumbai Test, Vijay was walking off when he called out a journalist he knows. He told the journalist to make an announcement on his behalf: that he wants to dedicate this innings to the father of a close friend back home who died on the first day of the Test. That he was sorry he couldn't be there for his friend, only whose first name he gave: Srinath.

This was a century that came after failings both similar and uncharacteristic. Vijay is known for scoring big at the start of a series and then fading away, but these failures were coming against the short ball from somebody who has tackled it with aplomb all over the world. Vijay is, in fact, one of the best - if not the best - leavers of the ball. Vijay acknowledged that failing.

"I did think about it [short balls] because I was playing at the balls I should be leaving generally," Vijay said. "There are lot of other factors to it. I don't want to reveal them. But yeah, the definite gameplan is to back my core game, believe in it and come back fresh, and to play this Test match the way I wanted to play."

The eight-day break between the third and fourth Tests perhaps turned this into a bit of a start of something new. "The break helped me," Vijay said. "And it helped everybody, I guess, to go and rethink and come back better."

One of the first successes for Vijay was hitting an overpitched Adil Rashid wrong'un for six, which resulted in Rashid being taken out of the attack at a time when spinners were troubling Vijay. "Actually, my gameplan is to attack the spinners because I don't want them to settle in one particular area where they find it comfortable," Vijay said. "I just wanted to use my feet and use the depth of the crease, and play according to my gameplan. It came out pretty well, I guess."

Asked to rate this innings vis-à-vis his others, Vijay said: "It is special because I started off well in this series," Vijay said. "And then a couple of matches I couldn't play the way I wanted to play. I was getting out too early. I just came out with a much clearer mindset in this game. And I just wanted to back my instinct and play."

The innings was special not least because it - with the help of a Virat Kohli masterclass - has given India a 51-run lead with three wickets in hand. Considering how much the ball has turned, that is a massive lead.

"Definitely [in control of this match]," Vijay said, "because any lead is gold in this wicket. During tea time, we just thought get close to their target, but the way Virat and Jayant Yadav are batting, I think we are in a pretty good position."