The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Dravid all praise for Gambhir

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 18, 2004

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Sport - Cricket

Dravid all praise for Gambhir

CHITTAGONG, DEC. 17. It looks like the coming day or two will be trying ones for Bangladesh. Having to bowl to in-form Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid would give even the best of bowlers sleepless nights.

The Chittagong pitch has turned out to be batsman-friendly. "It's nice to get a hundred, the wicket was very good. It was really flat, once you got set. A question of batting till you made a mistake," remarked Dravid.

About his feat of scoring centuries against every Test-playing nation, the Bangalorean said, "It's good company to be in with Steve Waugh, Gary Kirsten, Sachin Tendulkar - elite and respected. To have got a hundred in every Test-playing country is important. It's not what you play for, but when these things do come along, you sit back and fell quite happy about it."

Dravid continued, "But you can only look at it from the time in the era in which people played. A lot of players didn't play Bangladesh or Zimbabwe and some great ones didn't get to tour South Africa. You can only look at it based on the number of tours people could make at that time. Having said that, from my point of view, I had to score a hundred here to complete the set."

Dravid was all praise for the other centurion, Gautam Gambhir. "He is a positive player, batted really well. It was good to see the youngster score his first century. Hope it is the first of many."

The smile on Gambhir's face said it all. "I am very, very happy to score a century. Obviously it was a dream come true. Rahul helped me a lot, the whole team motivated me, and that gave me a lot of confidence. I am thankful to them."

About missing out on a century in Kanpur, the left-hander said, "Guess it is all part of the game. I was more determined here." — Our Principal Correspondent

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