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What the crowds at the Eden Gardens just saw was a fantastic game of cricket. I've been involved in a few fluctuating Tests, like the one in Barbados a couple of years ago, but this turnaround was remarkable. The architect of the victory was undoubtedly VVS Laxman. His knock was an exceptional one, and shows how Test cricket can inspire such incredible personal performances. It was probably the best knock played by an Indian in Test cricket and even compares favourably to the classic 150-odd that Brian Lara scored against us in 1999 to win a Test for his team. What makes Laxman's effort stand out was the time in which he scored his runs. His team was following on and he himself was facing some pressure to score.

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At the end of the third day, I thought that it would just be a question of a couple of wickets and we would be 2-0 up in the series. That was not to be, thanks to the mammoth effort of Laxman and Rahul Dravid. At this point many would be doubting the wisdom of our decision to make the Indians follow on. I have no regrets on that score. 100 times out of 100 I would have done the same thing. After all, we were 274 runs ahead, India had failed in the last nine innings that they had played against us, and when their key batsman Sachin Tendulkar was gone with just a little over a 100 runs on the board, I thought we were in with more than a chance.

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The other area where some questions can be raised is in relation to our decision to include Michael Kasparowicz instead of Colin Miller. It is no point thinking about who you don't have in the eleven, and the decision to include Michael was based on our theory that our best chance against the Indians is to let our pace bowlers have a go at them. Moreover, we had a feeling that the swing of Michael would prove useful which happened in the first innings. Our faith in pace worked to our advantage in Mumbai and again in the first innings here. It was finally thwarted only by an outstanding effort from VVS Laxman.

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Moreover, the only spinner who did really well on this pitch was Harbhajan Singh. None of the others in the match really got much purchase from the pitch. Of course, Sachin Tendulkar did pitch in with a couple at the end, but it was Harbhajan who did the major damage in both innings.

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We knew that our victory streak would have to come to an end sooner or later, and now that it has happened we must try to gain some positives out of it. Sure, we will sit around and talk about it, but I don't think there is much point in over-analysing. As far as Laxman is concerned, we know where to bowl to him, and it's to his credit that he counteracted our gameplan. We will now have to look into that area, and we have a couple of days to go about it.

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Personally, I would have liked my century to have contributed to a victory, and that I ended up on the losing side does take away from the knock. I have always wanted to score a ton in India, and if I had to choose a venue it would definitely have been the Eden Gardens. Nowhere else in the world do you get an audience of 80,000 people cheering you and of course there are the little children in Udayan who make this city a special place for me. I was pretty animated when I reached three figures because I was happy to have got there considering I was in my 20s when Jason Gillespie joined me. More importantly, I thought the century had taken us to a winning total, and an ideal situation to avenge our loss at this venue in 1998. However, Laxman and Dravid had other plans and we ended up in the losing side again. I guess this is my last match at the Eden Gardens and while I would have liked to sign off on a winning note, I'm sure I will remember my century here as a special one many years from now.