Dhoni: “What we wanted to do was to take the game till the end. Five overs of powerplay was left and we should have achieved it but … Thanks to Harbhajan and Praveen who made it such an interesting game. I would have been with a 270 score [When Australia batted]. We need to improve the death bowling and batsmen to carry on to make big scores.”

Ponting: “It was a pretty good performance other than six or seven overs in the end. The wicket held up nicely and the outfield was fast. We were just good enough to hold out in the end. The top order did a good job today; unfortunately we couldn’t get on to score a hundred. TOld Siddle to be just calm and have one thought .. just keep it simple. Harbhajan played well in the end.”

Hussey is the Man of the Match: “It was good fun. I really enjoyed the partnership with White in particular and the assault in the end came good. We had good partnerships higher up the order … Paine and Ponting. It was important to have wickets for the end. There was no target set; we tried to get to 300. The outfield is small is some places and very very fast; it’s a difficult ground to defend. The series should be very entertaining to the crowds.”

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