Sanjay Bangar's maiden century was a classy exhibition of uninhibited strokeplay. Yesterday, he had scored just 22 runs off 87 balls, a strike-rate of 25.3%. Today, his strike-rate rocketed to 114.7% (78 from 68 balls). Sachin Tendulkar himself managed just 39 from 41 balls today. It wasn't as if Zimbabwe's bowlers offered hit-me balls. Of the balls bowled to him today, 82.4% were on a good length (56 out of 68); the corresponding figure yesterday had been 74.7% (65 out of 87). Whereas he managed just 5 runs off those 65 balls yesterday, today he scored 57 runs from the good length balls.

His stats against Ray Price makes for interesting reading. Yesterday, he nudged 4 runs off 45 balls from Price, and never came down the wicket to negotiate the spin. Today, he hammered Price for 43 runs in 41 balls, using his feet wonderfully well to loft him over mid-on and extra-cover.

Also, most batsmen had been struggling to score in the V between mid-off and mid-on – Bangar got almost 40% of his runs today in that region (31 out of 78), and all but one of those runs came against the spinners.

If anything, Bangar's innings was confirmation of what could be achieved with a positive mindset. Both he and Tendulkar shunned the defensive mindset they adopted during the third session yesterday. The result was there for all to see.

S Rajesh is sub editor of Wisden.com India.

© Wisden CricInfo Ltd