Sunil Gavaskar hails Murali Vijay’s gritty mindset

Vijay remained unbeaten on 70 to lead India to a strong 146/1 in response to England’s first-innings 400 on Friday (Dec 9).

“Vijay has worked hard to play the short ball. (Coach) Anil Kumble has shown confidence in him and that is the right thing. Vijay has repaid that faith. There is still a long way to go. He needs to get a big one now,” former India opener Gavaskar said.

Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara put on over a 100 runs for the unbroken second wicket after the hosts lost KL Rahul early.

“There is a change in approachof Pujara's batting. He plays his shots now. The team management has given him that license. Pujara and Vijay have a lot of confidence in each other. They have been superb together," Gavaskar said.

Earlier, off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin grabbed his 23 fifer in Test cricket.

“Ashwin now has 23 five-wicket hauls. That's like a batsman scoring 23 hundreds,” the former Indian captain said.

Gavaskar felt that England skipper Alastair Cook had set a defensive field.

“The field was spread out when the Indians were batting. There were not too many fielders in catching positions. You need to build pressure on batsmen in such situations. England failed to do so despite having put plenty of runs on the board.”