Tendulkar-Laxman stand saved India: Ponting

Bangalore: Australian captain Ricky Ponting said he was delighted with his team's efforts in the first Test but regretted that his team could not create enough opportunities on the final day to go 1-0 ahead in the four-match series.

"It was a pretty good game of Test cricket. I was very excited at the end of the day's play last night. It was a very good contest. We started the game very positively and aggressively in the final morning. We tried with the new ball, but could not create enough opportunities today," Ponting told reporters after the match ended in a draw on Monday.

Agreeing that the Indians fought well, Ponting said that the Sachin Tendulkar-VVS Laxman partnership took the match away from them.

"The Sachin and Laxman stand took the match away from us. It turned out to be crucial. We took couple of wickets with the new ball but afterwards Sachin and Laxman got together and we just could not break their partnership. We played good cricket. There's no doubt about that and dominated this Test match," he said.

"Unfortunately we could not quite win at the end. But really it's a good start for the series for us," he added.

Ponting sounded optimistic when he spoke about the upcoming games in this series.

"We will win the next two Tests and we are not worried about that. But the turning point of this match was that Harbhajan and Zaheer got that partnership going and we could not break them. But still I feel happy the way we played," he said.

"We did create a winning position for us on the final day, but could not create the chances. We still have two days to recover from this game. We expect to play good cricket at Mohali," he added.

Lauding the newcomers' role in the team, Ponting said, "Shane (Watson) batted and bowled well in this match. He has exceeded my expectations. Cameron White did well in the match playing his first Test. If we had a quality spinner things would have been different. The more exposure we give to these guys the better they will be. I think the inexperienced guys in this game have done a pretty good job for us."

Ponting agreed that the pitch did not deteriorate as much as it was expected on the fifth day. "Yes, it did not deteriorate as much as we expected. There was still a lot of bounce in it. I was talking to the curator and he was also surprised that the pitch had cracked up but still had some bounce in it."

When queried whether Kumble's wicketless performance helped his team, Ponting said, "I spoke to Anil and he said there's a tendonitis in his shoulder. I'm not sure whether it's an injury. But when he came back to bowl this morning he looked perfectly okay."

"Anil knows this wicket well. He bowled a lot on this wicket. I think we batted well against him. Full credit to our batsmen," he added.