8216;Next tour, Team India will win8217;

Following the drawn fourth Test, the two skippers showed exemplary sportsmanship in praising each other.

Following the drawn fourth Test, the two skippers showed exemplary sportsmanship in praising each other.

Here are a few of their observations:

8226; Anil Kumble: 8220;We had our moments, it was pretty close in Sydney but for the last seven-eight minutes, but Australia played really well, credit should be given to them.

8220;Looking at the talent, I am sure they future teams would step up the plate in the future. The next Indian team which tours Australia would be proud of our performance and surely would try to win here.

8220;I think we raised ourselves to their level. They are a quality side and we have been able to compete well against them twice, over the last four years.

8220;We didn8217;t come here full strength. A couple of them were injured; then Zaheer Khan got injured after the first Test.

8220;Looking back, our young fast bowling unit responded was fantastic. RP Singh, Irfan Pathan and Ishant Sharma probably was the find of the series. At the age of 19 years, the way he bowled, his attitude and aggression, it troubled all batsmen.8221;

And Harbhajan? 8220;He is still young, he is only 27 years old. This was his first full tour to Australia. He didn8217;t play after the first Test last time. We have good spinners like Piyush Chawla, Ramesh Powar and Murali Kartik who, even though he is not young, is a quality spinner. We need to groom our young spinners though.8221;

Story continues below this ad

8226; Ricky Ponting: 8220;Going into lunch, we had a slim chance. But Sehwag being out there means the scoring keeps ticking over. He kept the run-rate going. The track really offered very little assistance. I8217;ve been really proud of the way we hung in there. Our bowling group has manfully handled the workload.

8220;I said before the Test that it was important how we batted in the first innings here and I am happy the batters knuckled down. It gave us a glimmer of hope to win this Test.

On the rebuilding process 8220;It8217;s funny, the way we8217;ve lost four or five of our best players, India could have a similar phase. They would lose their top players in the next 12 months and it would be interesting to see how they rebuild, only time would tell.8221;