Gilchrist's innings took the match away from us, says Ganguly

Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly agreed that the first Test match was lost to an outstanding innings played by Adam Gilchrist which took the match away from the hosts.

Speaking to the media at the post match conference, the Indian skipper accepted that they were outplayed at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai on Thursday.

"We should have batted better. They helped us by putting us in to bat. I would have batted as well had I won the toss." he added. "We had them at 99 for five at one stage but we did not apply ourselves well, we could not carry on from there," he said. He added that the Australians were a good side. But he remained optimistic and said, "You can say a lot of things when we have lost the game. We did not bat well in the two innings and we will need to work on that."

Ganguly said credit must be given to Gilchrist. "He played very well. We lost to an outstanding innings. He was hitting the off spinner over mid-wicket even though I had a mid-wicket, a square leg, a mid-on and a deep fine leg. He kept hitting it in the gaps." The Indian captain added that if the Indians had got him early it would have been a totally different scenario.

Commenting on the wicket, the left hander said it turned quite a lot and it was a typical Indian wicket. "That is how Indian wickets are," he said. On the bowling tactics, Ganguly said he had a lot of confidence in Sachin Tendulkar and he was bowling well to both lefthanders. He said that even he was unable to stop the run flow when Gilchrist began the counter attack.

The skipper generally adopted a low key attitude at the conference and he seemed quite frustrated at some of the questions asked of him. "You play well, you win. It's no point talking about it now and explaining our level of confidence. We have to do it in the middle and prove it."