Nagpur, Nov 23:Putting up a brave front after his side lost the third and final Test inside five days, New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori said his team was on the backfoot from Day One after getting out for 193 runs and after that coming back into the Test was always tough.

Vettori further said that South Africa will be the final frontier for Team India and that they are the No. 1 Test side for a reason.

Excerpts:

On what went wrong:

I think after winning the toss, scoring 193 put us under a lot of pressure. And yesterday morning we bowled so well and took three wickets but couldn’t capitalise on that. Dhoni and Dravid played exceptionally well. There were lots of niggles for us but I think India showed us how to bat especially in this Test.

On whether an extra spinner would have been handy:

No, I don’t think so. We lost because of our batting in the first innings.

On whether he felt that his side surrendered too early:

Any time you lose, you surrender too early. We are disappointed with our performance. We knew we had to be positive this morning but couple of dismissals... There was a period where India bowled well but once you get through the new [hard] ball, it's a wicket where you can bat on for a long time.

On Team India’s chances in South Africa:

I am not sure on what grounds they are playing. That will have a huge bearing on it. India are the no. 1 team in the world for a reason and they have started to play exceptionally well overseas and so South Africa seems like a final frontier for them.

On UDRS:

I can only be consistent with my opinion. I have said all along that I have enjoyed the referral system and that it's good for cricket.

On the positives from the series

As a batting unit, a number of guys – it was the first time for all of them – at the top of the order - Mcintosh and McCullum, then Ryder and Kane Williamson. It is an exciting group of batsmen there. We have to now learn from what India did here about batting long periods of time day in and day out. We are a good team for a period of time but to be a good side, we have to do it every single time.

On whether he didn’t budget for Harbhajan the batsman:

We concentrated on them; we knew what we had to do but he played exceptionally well. Sometimes people forget to give credit to the person who has done well; Harbhajan did that in two games; he took the game away from us. He was better than us on the day

On Team India bowlers:

The real difference was Sharma. To take 7 wickets on this surface .. we knew we were in for a challenge against spinners but we should have done better against the seamers. It was a pretty flat track for the seamers but for him to come in and do the damage was the real difference between the two teams.

On Jesse Ryder’s injury:

I think he is going home. I can’t confirm that but I think he is going home.