Nagpur, Nov 23: Indian middle-order batsman Rahul Dravid, who played a key role in batting New Zealand out of the game, on Tuesday said that it was actually the bowlers who had set the game up for India and the batsmen just batted sensibly to seize control over the match.

Speaking to BCCI.TV, Dravid said that he had to work hard for his runs through the series but was satisfied with the result.

Excerpts:

On his performances in the series:

Yeah, it was a good series. I had to work hard for my runs at various stages. I am happy with the way I finished the series and especially with the kind of result we got today.

On the team effort:

To be honest, it was the bowlers who had set the game up for us. The bowlers bowled fantastically well to restrict them [New Zealand] to 193. From there on we knew that if we bat sensibly we will always be in control of the game. Somebody needed to bat long, needed to bat big and we got a good start as usual from Viru [Virender Sehwag] and Gauti [Gautam Gambhir], then we had a good partnership between Sachin [Tendulkar] and myself and then Dhoni [MS] came on and played a positive innings. We set the game up quite beautifully.

On the Nagpur track:

I think it was the best wicket we have got in the whole series. In terms of bounce it had something for the bowlers early on, especially when the ball was hard, and then the ball turned as we saw towards the later stages of the game. Good cricket wicket to play on.

On the upcoming South Africa series:

It is an important series. It is really a big series. I am really looking forward to it. And now when this is all over we can start focusing on that series.