Martin my Man of the Match: Harbhajan

Cricket news:

" Chris Martin is my Man of the Match for taking five wickets here," said Harbhajan Singh soon after he bagged the award. Harbhajan scored a career-best 69 in the first innings and followed it up with a 115."Environment were tough for bowlers, as everyone saw. So all credit to Martin for that spell on the fourth day which really put us in a spot," said the Turbanator, who dedicated his hundred to late father Sardar Sardev Singh.

He also dedicated it to the other seniors in the team - Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, MS Dhoni and VVS Laxman - and former legend Sunil Gavaskar, who always believed that the off-spinner had the capacity to score a Test century. "But I never thought that I will someday get the Man of the Match award in Tests for my batting. I thought I always had a chance in the ODIs and T20s if I go up the order and get some quick runs.

But this is really exciting. I am really pleased that it helped save the game for us," said Harbhajan, who received a pep talk from Dhoni the previous night on how to go about things in the middle."I told Bhajji that we all know he can bat. So all he should do is play his normal game and give VVS company," said Dhoni after the match. Harbhajan not only played his normal game but also saw to it that India didn't make a mess of it.

"Laxman played the way he always does. And with the kind of talent he has we knew that we have a tough job on hand even though they were six wickets down. We always knew that Harbhajan can bat and today he showed wonderful maturity and temperament. They just stonewalled everything that was thrown at them," said New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori.