'Hundred was very special'

Stand-in skipper plays down suggestions of captaincy aspirations

“I think MS (Dhoni) has done a much better job,” he replied when asked if he was slowly beginning to cement his place as a captain in the near future. “He has taken this team to another level, whatever responsibility has been given to me I want to discharge it to the best of my ability rather than thinking I am going to be the future captain.

“Right now MS is the best man to lead the side. This is about the current series and I am only concentrating on this series and whenever I get the opportunities, I’ll try and do my best,” he explained in his post-match comments on Tuesday.

Gambhir termed his unbeaten 138, his first century as a captain, as a special one. “Scoring your first 100 is always special but finishing the game is far more pleasing than scoring a century and then getting out. Finishing the game was very important and I felt I did a good job,” he noted.

The skipper also downplayed India’s poor catching. “We are human beings and we are bound to make mistakes,” he thought.

“We can’t expect everybody is going to catch everything and can’t expect everyone to have a perfect day... There will be times you end up mis-fielding, dropping catches, but I personally felt that ground fielding was very good. It was a good overall effort,” he remarked.

The left-hander said he wasn’t surprised with the manner in which India achieved victory. “I thought 259 was a good total and we always felt that the wicket was going to keep a bit low, but the advantage was that ball was coming nicely on to the bat in the second half than in the first half.

“Someone had to bat long and fortunately it was me today.”

Meanwhile, New Zealand skipper while terming the defeat as disappointing stressed on the need to look ahead. “There is no point in getting caught up with history,” said Vettori when reminded of his team’s eighth consecutive ODI loss, all coming in the sub-continent.

The all-rounder also hoped injured batsman Brendon McCullum would be fit for next match.

“He is improving, we are taking it day by day and we will wait on his fitness.”