Praveen showed great character, says skipper Dhoni

Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni praised Rahul Dravid and Praveen Kumar for their significant contribution in India's 63-run win over West Indies in the first Test here on Thursday.

While man-of-the-match Dravid scored 112 in the second innings while Praveen had a match-haul of six for 80.

"Dravid has been an exceptional batsman. That he played over 250 deliveries showed he was very patient. He made the bowlers pitch in his areas and was brilliant," Dhoni said at the post-match press conference.

But he had special mention for Praveen who proved one and all the he can be a handful in longer version too.

"Praveen is a very skillful bowler and can swing the ball either way. He doesn't have the pace but he can confuse the batsmen with his movement. The batsmen are circumspect as to whether they should play or leave the deliveries," Dhoni explained.

"He (Praveen) showed great character after having been stopped from bowling in the first innings. When you are switching from 10-over format to 20-25 overs in an innings, you have to be careful. Importantly, he backed his strength and picked up wickets in the second innings as well."

The skipper seemed satisfied with the effort of the lower-order batsmen like Harbhajan Singh and Amit Mishra whose contributions made a lot of difference to the final outcome of the match.

"Our lower-order batsmen for the past year and a half have been contributing well. We were 85 for 6 in the first innings before Harbhajan along with Suresh Raina, bailed us out. In the second innings, Mishra made a telling contribution," he said.