Newindpress

Belfast, Jun 28: Captain Rahul Dravid believes Sachin Tendulkar's valiant 99 in the first ODI against South Africa is only the start of a successful tour of the UK for the veteran batsman.

“Sachin probably realises like everyone else that this is probably the last time he will be touring the UK. He is keen to have a good tour of England,” Dravid said after India's four-wicket loss on Tuesday.

“This time around, he Piyush (Chawla) bowled against some experienced players and gave a good account of himself,” Dravid said while praising his rookie bowler.

“The conditions were not perfect for spin bowling. It was difficult to grip the ball because it was really cold.”

“He has done a great job. The more he can bowl in these conditions the better he will be for the experience,” Dravid said.

He also said that the team would have to make do with a depleted bowling line-up for the second match on Friday after three of their pacers became victims of a virus.

“Ishant Sharma and Ranadeb Bose will join us on Thursday, so we should have some cover in the pace bowling department. But, again, they would be joining us after a long flight and to rush them into the game straightaway is not on,” he said.

“Both Sreesanth and (Ajit) Agarkar are quite bad. But Mahendra dhoni (vice-captain) should be okay for the next game although with flu you never know.

“It's going to be a tricky decision for us.”

Looking back on the match, Dravid was happy to see his players show a lot of character. At the same time he felt it was frustrating not to finish on the winning side in a close game.

“There were aspects of our game that were quite heartening, not least the fact that lot of guys in the XI were not hundred percent fit but they came out and fought hard.”

“There were some good performances with the bat and with the ball. It was a close game and it would have been nice to win,” Dravid said.

“It's a little frustrating in the end. I thought we played some good cricket right through the game but unfortunately we couldn't pip them at the post.

“I thought Kallis' innings was really good. He controlled the innings very well. His wicket was crucial in the context of the game.

“If we had got him with even 30-40 runs to go, we had a great chance. Although we got wickets at regular intervals we couldn't get Kallis and that cost us dearly.”

Dravid thought his team could have done well to get a few more runs on the board in the last 10 overs.

“In the morning, the conditions helped the seamers. We had to rebuild after losing two early wickets. We had to fight hard and did well to get to about 180 in 40 overs.

“With eight wickets in hand, we would have liked to add a few more than the 60 runs we got on the board, maybe 10-15 more runs in the slog was par for the score.

“But some of the shots carried straight to the fielders and they also bowled well in the death overs.