Having snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, Ricky Ponting said he was disappointed to lose the match. "I am disappointed,” the Australian skipper said. “Whenever you lose a game, you are disappointed. You are more disappointed when you are in a winning position and it gets away from you. I have been really happy with what we have done.

“The two games we lost have been from winning positions. That's the way it is in one-day cricket, you win some, you lose some. We all are proud to win a series here, it is a hard place to win a game of cricket and a hard place to win a series. Congratulations to all the guys, they played really well."

Mitchell Johnson, who put the visitors in to the game with two strikes early in India's innings, came in for special praise. "I said last week that he is doing everything right. He got us two wickets with the new ball.

Pat for Johnson

“Bowling at that pace, swinging the new ball, he is pretty handy to have. He was pretty good with the bat, and is a great athlete. He is a complete package. I have no doubt he has got the skills to adapt to the longer version of the game as well. He is doing everything right and stands a chance as anyone to be picked for the first Test (against Sri Lanka)," he explained. 

Left-arm chinaman Brad Hogg has been handy throughout the series but on Wednesday, he didn’t trouble the Indians much. "I think Hogg did not bowl his best today. Just at the stage when we needed him to take wickets, we could not get one with our spinners, and one of our bowlers was down today (James Hopes coming off the field). It was a bit of juggling act for me as well," he explained.

"I was tempted to use Symonds but through this series, I felt Hogg has been as good a wicket-taking option as anybody. I kept going to him today and unfortunately he did not get it done for us and we lost the game," explained the captain.

Hostile crowd

On the hostile treatment the crowd meted out to the Australians, especially to man of the series Andrew Symonds, resulting in the arrest of a group of spectators in the Northern Stand, Ponting said, "It is totally unacceptable.

“Not just in sport but in any field of life. It has happened for the second time in the series and Symonds is disappointed."