Daijiworld Media Network - Sports

Kingston, Jun 24: The Indian cricket's Wall, who is getting stronger by the day, is all praise for the Kingston groundsmen for preparing a well-balanced pitch, which helped both batsmen and bowlers, session after session.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni's men once again proved too hot for the West Indies at the Kingston Jamaica, where India won the first test by a comfortable margin of 63 runs.

Speaking after receiving the 'Man of the Match’ award for the first test for cracking match-winning knock in the second innings, Dravid said, “the weather condition was too hot, it was all about staying at the crease and getting some runs. I applied myself to the task well, and I knew that if I stayed at the crease long enough, I had a chance to get a century."

Describing his century in this test as one of the best in his career, he said he would try to keep up the same form throughout the series and also the up-coming England tour.

Captain Dhoni was full of praise for Dravid as well as his bowlers, especially Praveen Kumar, who claimed six wickets in the match, which happened to be his debut test.

"Spinners could have bowled better than they did, but they too have done excellent job. Both Mishra and Bhajji controlled the game throughout," Dhoni said.

"We missed quite a few key players in this test match, which meant somebody had to take up the responsibility, and I'm glad at the fact that our team shouldered this responsibility well, and also the way we performed. At one stage, we were 85 for 6 in the first innings, but you know again the lower order contribution was impressive. Suresh Raina batted really well, with Harbhajan Singh and the rest of the tail contributing to a fighting total,” Dhoni commented.

"I think we have done really well over the last two years or so with the lower-order contribution and the same time, part-timers getting wickets when it's most needed. I think this was a perfect example. We had initially thought maybe we'll end up getting 150 or 200-odd runs, but we ended up getting some more runs because of which we were able to get a good first innings lead and we ended up getting over 250 runs in the second innings," he added.