India continue first position in test cricket

A beautiful contest between two very good teams,but SA will really feel digusted with their performance.They let a golden oppurtunity slip for a series win with some mediocre individual performances.Players like Prince,Duminy and De Villiers have been absentees throughout this series,and that puts too much pressure on the rest of the line-up.

India bats man working a great rool to win this match, on the other hand have a great batting line-up, but the need for a quality quickie and allrounder is clearly showing.The number 1 ranking was achieved with solid home performances,but I can't recall any significant away wins over the last couple of years. Bangladesh and New Zealand do not really count now do they? SA has the best away record of all the test nations,but inconsistency haunts them at home.

For India to be really considered the top side in the world, they have to start winning away from home, and improve their pitches at home,so they can developed a more balanced side. Quick,bouncy wickets Down Under and in SA has always been India's undoing. You can't play every delivery of the front foot or bowl waist high bouncers.

Prepare proper wickets to be inclusive of all the aspects of test cricket,and cut back on IPL and one-dayers. Indian cricket will be much better for it,and maybe then they will be able to claim to be the best test side around.

Gambhir's Success Story

He missed out on equaling a famous record held by the greatest batsman of them all but at least drew level with another famous record held by a cricketing legend. But then that's Gautam Gambhir for you. The days are long past when he was in the 'little league' as just another promising young batsman.

He is now in the big league sharing the records section with the likes of Vivian Richards, Mohammad Younis and Jacques Kallis and being chosen as the ICC Test player of the year. He is setting batting marks left, right and centre and is very much an integral part of the most lustrous batting line-up in the game.

In fact Gambhir has been so outstanding over the past year or so that the question now is how much better can he get? Not too long ago he was the small boy among the big men. Now he is well on his way to upstaging the big men. The remarkable transformation of Gambhir has been the talking point of 2008 and 2009, and the way the year has started for him he could well be the cynosure in 2010 too.

Gambhir holds on to top spot in ICC Test rankings

From being in and out of the team he is now not only a permanent fixture – as permanent as the superstars – but one has also come to expect great things from him. It is now impossible to think of the Indian team without a substantial contribution from him at the top of the order. Virender Sehwag put it succinctly last year when he described him as the 'Second Wall'’ following his marathon in the Napier Test against New Zealand that played a major role in India comfortably staving off defeat.

For once this was no exaggeration for there were aspects of Rahul Dravid’s batting approach during the 643 minutes that Gambhir was at the crease.

Unexpected heroes are the favourite subjects for fiction writers and Gambhir’s success story has been nothing short of sensational. At 28 the pugnacious left-hander from Delhi had over the first three years of his Test career experienced the ups and downs being in and out of both the Test and ODI squads.

But since the Test series against Sri Lanka in 2008 he has been a tower of strength at the top of the order, striking a particularly fruitful association with Sehwag his Delhi mate and good friend and made it that much easier for the exalted middle order to play more freely. Mental strength allied to his natural talent and the capacity to rise to the occasion when the chips are down have seen Gambhir make giant strides.

It is his positive attitude that has helped Gambhir to make a strong statement with the bat. As he said in a recent interview when asked the reasons for his success 'the plan is simple. See the ball, hit the ball and play in the 'V'. I have a simple mantra in life. You don't win a silver, you lose a gold.' The inference is clear and taken from the saying 'second best is still a loser.

Gambhir joins Richards, but misses Bradman

That's the kind of ambitious approach that takes you places and Gambhir has suddenly emerged as the man of the moment. Uniquely he was the only cricketer to score over 1000 runs in both Tests and ODIs in 2008. His career average in the longer version of the game which was in the early 30s in mid 2008 is now approaching the 60 mark.

And to think that Gambhir made a limp start to his Test career being dismissed for scores of three and one albeit on a minefield of a pitch at Mumbai against Australia in November 2004. Later the same month however he got an impressive 96 in his second Test against South Africa and was marked for great things. It was during this innings that he shared a partnership of 218 runs with Sehwag - the second highest stand for the first wicket for India after the famous 413-run association between Pankaj Roy and Vinoo Mankad.

A month later he got his first Test hundred against Bangladesh and some good scores against Pakistan and Zimbabwe. But then followed a lean period against Sri Lanka and he was replaced by Wasim Jaffer.

Gambhir's success story began with his showing in the CB Series in early 2008 where he was the leading run getter. Thereafter there was no looking back and he finished as the leading run getter in ODIs and third in Tests in 2008. This underlined his remarkable progress. He was a model of consistency and his ability to play long innings and run up tall scores – centuries and even a double century – saw him emerge as one of the bulwarks fitting admirably into the most lustrous batting line-up in the game today.

Through a combination of his own talent and hard work Gambhir has made himself into a complete batsman. He has displayed in no uncertain terms technique, temperament and the ability to rise to the occasion. He is also one of the very few players to have an accomplished record in all three forms of the game. He is the only Indian batsman with six half-centuries in Twenty20.