With India having done the unthinkable, ‘crisis man’ Rahul Dravid today declared without hesitation that his performance in the second Test against Australia here was his best ever. Dravid had refused to rate his 233-run knock in India’s first innings and said his effort would be meaningless unless India won the Test. But as Dravid, who made another unbeaten 72 runs in India’s second knock, collected his man-of-the-match award for his contribution to India’s epoch-making win, he declared with pride that it was certainly his best Test performance to date. “It is my best Test performance. At the moment I have very few emotions but may be when I have a chance to sit back this victory will mean a lot,” an emotionally-choked Dravid said after his side scripted a fabulous four-wicket come-from-behind victory. He said he was driven with the desire to win it for his bowlers who had done so remarkably to bundle the hosts out for 196. “You can bat as well as you want to and score as many runs as you want to, but at the end of the day your bowlers have to take 20 wickets to win the match. They gave us the opportunity and we did not want to let them down.” Dravid, who spent no less than 14 hours at the crease, also said he found it hard to concentrate for so long but was elated that it had all paid off in the end. “Batting is a lot about mental concentration as well. It was hard at stages (to keep concentrating). It was hard to motivate myself, refocus on the job. I knew it was going to be just a few more hours of hard work and the job would be done.”
