India vs England, 4th Test, Day 3: Murali Vijay scores century

He came into the series without much playing time in first-class cricket and only made the team after the first two tests as England’s other batsmen struggled.

“When the ball looped up to gully my heart was in my mouth and thought “No you got a nought in your first innings”, but thankfully it went to ground and I went from there”, he said.

The 24-year-old – the only batsman to score over 1,500 runs in the 2016 County Championship – moved into triple figures with a fine reverse sweep, but his excellent knock was ended by Ravichandran Ashwin, who claimed figures of 4-75 to keep the tourists in check.

One of the defining images of India’s last home series against England is from the last over of the second day of the Mumbai Test: Alastair Cook and Kevin Pietersen have forged a solid reply to what had initially seemed a match-winning 327 from India on a pitch that looked likely to turn square. England’s pacers got nearly nothing off the surface as Rahul, making a return after the Vizag Test, creamed some boundaries to move to a 41-ball 24.

Realistically speaking, England would not want the hosts to get a lead more than 70 to 80, though even that can be decisive on a typical tiring subcontinent wicket.

England would go on to win that series, after tasting victory in the next Test at Kolkata as well.

“Asked how necessary was it to meet friends, family in the game, Kohli said: “It is much needed, because when you go home in the break, honestly between the series, you can not switch off because there is this thing in the mind you keep visualising in the day what to do in the match”.

“It’s a very true wicket for Test format because everybody had to work (on) their game plans and got to be very clear in the mindset to deliver”. In England’s second innings in Mohali, Ashwin came back for the last over to dismiss Ben Stokes with an inspired review. “But I think the way he plays is a lesson on how to play on these wickets”. “We came here (on Sunday) morning thinking, “If we can get those three wickets quite quickly we’re still in the game – we’d obviously have to bat well but we wouldn’t be too far behind the game and we’d try to get ourselves back in the game with the bat”.

“The opportunity, the professionalism, I don’t know if I can put my exact finger on it but there was a combination of feeling really welcome, feeling loved, feeling pushed as well”, he said of his decision to make himself available for England instead of South Africa.

From there on, Kohli along with opener Murali Vijay added 116 runs for third wicket.

“It’s very hard to bowl against guys when they’re in that sort of form”.

“If we can do that well, we’ ve got a really good game on our hands”. “Whatever situation is in front of us, we just need to stick to our game plan and work in pairs”, he said.