Ahmedabad: India defeated England by nine wickets in the first match being played at Sardar Patel Stadium, Motera, Ahmedabad to take a 1-0 lead over the visiting team in the four match Test series. Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni after the match said that it was a fantastic game for the team and it was a great team effort from his boys.
“It was a great team effort and everyone played their part. We got the runs on board in the first innings and we knew that it will be a difficult task for the bowlers to take 20 wickets. Our bowlers did very well in the first innings, but things got difficult for them second time around as the pitch slowed up. It was hard work for the bowlers and all I can say is that it was a fantastic effort from them,” Dhoni said.
On Cheteshwar Pujara who hit a tremendous double hundred in the first innings, Dhoni said, “It was fantastic for him, Pujara is a player who has the right temperament to play a big innings, he has done it in domestic cricket. He showed immense maturity by converting his start into a double hundred.”
Dhoni was all praise for Pragyan Ojha who took nine wickets in the match, “Ojha is a bowler who does not give away runs, in the second innings he had extra responsibility on him because he was deceiving the batsmen in flight and he bowled superbly.”
England captain Alastair Cook praised his team for their tremendous fight-back and said that they can take a lot of confidence from this match.
“It was a great fight back from us, we did not batted well in the first innings and that hurt us. But in the second innings we showed what we are capable of. We had an outside chance of saving the match as there is always a glimmer of hope when the match goes into the final day.”
On his brilliant partnership with Matt Prior, Cook said, “Matt and I knew what we needed to do, we had a good partnership last night and we needed to carry on with that this morning, unfortunately it did not happen.”
Cook also said that they have got some great talent in their squad and it will be important for them to score big runs in the first innings in the next match.
Cheteshwar Pujara who scored 206* and 41* in the match was awarded the man of the match award for his super performance.
“I enjoyed batting in the middle and things went right for me, I would like to congratulate our bowlers for taking 20 wickets in the match because the pitch really slowed up and it was hard work for them,” Pujara said.
“I was out of cricket for more than a year because of injury and I am very happy that I got a double hundred in the match,” he added.
By Indian Sports News Network