Ponting slams 'negative' India

BANGALORE // A frustrated Australia captain Ricky Ponting took a swipe at India's negative approach after the first Test ended in a draw yesterday. "We were the only ones in the game trying to take the game forward. We played aggressive cricket. I am not surprised by the way they played, the Indian team do play a lot of drawn games," a bitter-sounding Ponting said after the match. India clung on for a draw at 177 for four after being set an unlikely winning target of 299 on a difficult pitch.

"We thought we had a really good contest on our hands today," Ponting added. "We got some extra runs we thought we might have needed. We gave it our best shot with the ball but we just didn't create enough opportunities today. "We played good cricket, there is no doubt about that, we dominated this Test match pretty much from the second or third over on the first day. "We could not win it at the end, but it was a pretty good start to the series for us."

Sachin Tendulkar top-scored with 49 in India's second innings, dismissed 14 runs short of equalling Brian Lara's world runs record. The India paceman Zaheer Khan said Australia's failure to force a victory would put them under more pressure for the remainder of the series. The second Test in the four-match series starts in Mohali on Friday. "They know they can't take our 20 wickets. They couldn't get me and Bhajji (Harbhajan Singh) out, what else do you want? They are under pressure, we know that," Man of the Match Zaheer said.

"On a fifth day wicket their spinners couldn't do us any harm. That tells everyone what their spin attack is all about," said the left-arm seamer who took five wickets in the first innings. "Even their pacers, they didn't look like getting a wicket, especially on the fifth day on a wicket like this." Zaheer and Harbhajan scored fifties and shared an 80-run stand in the first innings which rescued India who then narrowed down the first-innings deficit to just 70 runs.

*Reuters