Ashwin biggest gain: Gambhir

“Ashwin for sure,” Gambhir said when asked which player impressed him the most in the five-match rubber. “He is a quality bowler, as we saw during the IPL too, especially the way he bowled in the Power Plays. If you have an off-spinner who can bowl in the Power Plays and slog overs, he can be a great asset for the team.

“He was pretty handy and in the entire five-match series, he bowled brilliantly.”

Yuvraj Singh, struggling to convert his starts, finally made his form count with an unbeaten 42 to go with his two-wicket burst. “I think Yuvraj was also brilliant,” Gambhir pointed out.

“He delivered with whatever opportunities he got with the ball and the bat as well, and the amount of support I got from him was tremendous.

“I think Yusuf played a fantastic innings (in Bangalore). I have always felt Yusuf is someone who has the talent to turn the game on its head. If you see the last game, not many would have given us a chance to win the match, but he did the job for us. Likewise, Virat was special and the bowlers did a good job, especially on flat tracks.

“We hardly discuss our bowling and we always treat it as a weak link. But I need to give a lot of credit to them. The entire unit delivered,” Gambhir elaborated, dwelling on the gains from the series.

Unlike the New Zealand series, Gambhir felt, the World Cup would be a different ball game. “There will be far more pressure and there will be a lot more expectations from us as well,” he remarked, while stressing the need to improve fielding. “If you really want to be number one and you really want to sustain that position, you need to improve all the time.

“One area is may be try and improve our fielding. If we compare ourselves to New Zealand, they were far more brilliant on the field than us.

“If we can improve our overall fielding as a team, with the kind of talent we have in our batting and bowling, we can be big contenders in the World Cup and a very strong side in the future,” he observed.