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‘It was a fabulous victory’

07 Dec 2015, 07:02 pm

‘It was a fabulous victory’
Summary

Sunil Gavaskar is all praise for the Indian team for their all-round show in the Test series

It was a fabulous victory for the Indian team. They had to work hard for it as South Africa showed great resistance and there was stubbornness to their batting. AB de Villiers, Hashim Amla, Faf du Plessis resisted for quite a while, but I think India knew that it was a matter of a couple of wickets and they would be through. The last five wickets fell in a heap after R Ashwin took another five-for and went on to win the Man of the Series award. The ball of the day was the one that Ravindra Jadeja bowled to get rid of Hashim Amla and that was the first break. South Africa were blocking everything. Now when that happens, the energy levels go down, but that did not happen with the Indian team, and that has been the highlight for me for the entire series. Umesh Yadav bowled a fiery spell. He got the ball to come back in to the right-hander. He struck AB a couple of times on the hand and looked like he would take a wicket every ball. No praise can be too high for Jadeja. He was making a comeback to the Indian team after being left out of the ODIs as well as the Test series. The way he has come in and the way he batted with those little 20s and 30s when India did not have too many runs, have made contributions to the team’s total. His was an important contribution to the win. Congratulations to the Indian captain who led the team from the front. He had enormous belief in his team and the fact that he had the players who would rise to the occasion. We saw Ajinkya Rahane do that with a century in each innings. The fielding levels were top class. It is the kind of team with the age that it has, and the time it has in the future, it is going to be a team that is going to be very very difficult to beat not just in India, but overseas as well. Well done, India and all the very best for the future!