Alastair Cook paid tribute to batting coach Graham Gooch after scoring a crucial 118 on day three of the second Test against South Africa in Durban.
Cook has been working intensively with Essex and sometime England coach Gooch for the last three months in an effort to correct his technique.
"Those early starts back in Chelmsford before we came out here have paid off," Cook, 25, told BBC Sport.
"He's a legend, he's helped me so much and works as hard on my game as I do."
The Essex left-hander made an unbeaten century on his Test debut in India in March 2006 and had six hundreds to his name by the time of his 17th match.
But in his 25 Tests prior to this match, Cook reached three figures only twice, although he averaged a healthy 41 in that period.
His century came from 218 balls and to 67 of those he offered no shot, patiently refusing deliveries in the off-stump area that might have led to his dismissal.
Cook put on 142 with Paul Collingwood (91) for the fourth wicket, with the only major alarm coming when he was given out caught at short leg, before a referral revealed that he had not made contact with the ball.
"It's been a gradual thing since the Ashes, a gradual change in my technique, in my foot movement, my alignment and my back-lift and it's been a case of grooving that," said Cook.
"I'm just shy of a 1,000 runs in this calendar year, so it hasn't been going that badly, but when you have a couple of Test matches when you don't get scores you do feel under pressure and it's nice to score a few."
Cook added that Collingwood, who passed fifty for the 18th time in Tests, had been a settling presence at the other end.
"Colly's been a rock in our middle order this year and he played fantastically well and it was a good partnership at a good time," said Cook.
"I've scored quite a lot of my Test hundreds with Colly at the other end so it had a familiar setting.
"But we can't get too carried away, the first session tomorrow is crucial. If we can get through the first hour without too much damage, like we did today, we can build on that, but a couple of wickets changes all that."
South Africa coach Mickey Arthur said he was happy with his side's improved display and that he would be happy to limit England's lead, which is currently 43, to 150 on day four.
Arthur said: "It was a hard day, but I thought we stuck to our task very well. We executed a lot better than yesterday, I've got no complaints with the effort they put in.
"It was good old-fashioned Test cricket - we ran in and executed well and England didn't give us an inch.
"England never got away from us through some big partnerships, the scoring rate was always manageable.
"The encouraging thing for me was Dale [Steyn] got better and better with each spell, and to see Jacques [Kallis] running in at the back end of the day with no ill-effects is obviously really good for us because it gives us the balance we've always wanted. Our attack will get better and better."
"I'd be very happy if England got 120-150 ahead, although that's going to take a really big effort from us in the morning."
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