Monday, July 3 2006 14:57 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kingston (Jamaica): India defeated the West Indies by 49 runs in the fourth and final Test at the Sabina Park on Sunday. The win gave them the series 1-0, the first by an Indian team in the Caribbean after 35 years.

Overnight 128 for six, India were dismissed for 171 in their second innings, 40 minutes before lunch on the third day of the five-day match. That left the West Indies 269 to win, with plenty of time to do that.

But it was never going to be easy on this wicket, which West Indian skipper Brian Lara later described as 'unfair for good and hard cricket'.

India bowled them out for 219, with 1.2 overs remaining on the day.

Anil Kumble was the hero of the day, taking six wickets for 78. But the hero of the match, and of the series indeed, was captain Rahul Dravid. He was named man of the match for his outstanding knocks of 81 and 68, and also man of the series, in which he aggregated 496 runs.

Dravid was very modest about his own achievements: "The man-of-the-match award and the man-of-the-series award is not as important. I'm more happy with the fact that we have an away series win.

"We played better cricket throughout this series and we deserved to win. I would have been very disappointed if we had gone back with nothing," said Dravid, referring to India coming to almost winning the first two Tests, at Antigua and St Lucia (where rain washed out one entire day's play).

"It was a great team effort," continued Dravid.

"Everyone chipped in, right through the series," he said.

Lara was complimentary about the Indians, too. "I'm very proud of my boys," he said.

"They played good hard cricket, but unfortunately we came up against a team which played better cricket than us," he said.

He did mention though that losing nine wickets for 57 runs in the first innings (when the West Indies went from 46 for 1 to 103 all out) was 'unbecoming of a team' that wants to be taken seriously.

Lara was very critical of the wicket, also.

"I'm sure it was not the sort of pitch both teams wanted after 1-1/2 months of hard cricket," he said.

It was as if it was prepared specially for India. He was referring to the wicket's helpful nature towards India's spinners, who took 11 in the match (Harbhajan Singh had five in the first innings and Kumble six in the second).

Kumble's six-wicket haul was the 33rd five-plus haul in his career and it must have given him immense satisfaction, especially after his Herculean efforts in Antigua and St Lucia had gone unrewarded.

Well as he bowled, credit must also go to medium-pacers S. Sreesanth and Munaf Patel. S. Sreesanth dismissed openers Chris Gayle he was out second ball and collected a pair of ducks in his hometown and Darren Ganga. Patel got the vital wicket of Lara, the one man capable of playing a match-winning innings. He was trapped plumb in front by one that kept a bit low.

Ramnaresh Sarwan (51) batted boldly and Denesh Ramdin (62 not out) bravely, especially while adding 65 with the last three wickets, but all their knocks did was to give the hundred-strong Indian fan contingent at the Sabina Park a few jittery moments. So rare are Indian series wins abroad that it needed only a little resistance for doubts to surface even amongst the most faithful.

Dravid, however, said that his team was very confident of defending the target of 269.

"In a low-scoring game (such as this), a win by 50 runs is a big margin," he said.

"No batsman could say that he was set, no matter how long he had batted," he said.