THE series was lucky to have survived the Mumbai terror attacks. After England abandoned the ODI series, there were serious concerns over them returning to play the two Test matches, originally scheduledfor Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

The first Test was moved out of Mumbai but England had a problem with Ahmedabad as well, due to its proximity to Mumbai.

So Chennai and Mohali were confirmed as venues. England were given all the security assurances and it was only after security advisor Reg Dickason gave the green signal did England decide to come for the two Tests amidst reports that top English players were unwilling to come. But they came and that too with a full- strength squad. India scripted a fairytale win in Chennai, with Sachin Tendulkar hitting a century in the last innings to chase down a record score of 387.

That win had the class of Yuvraj Singh, who scored a mature 85 with Sachin, and the venom of Zaheer, who took 3 for 40 in 27 overs to stifle England in the second innings.

Even though the second Test in Mohali ended in a draw after India took a lead of 151, the hosts have shown that after the tour to Australia earlier in the year, they have come a long way in terms of performance and belief.

For India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the series was a perfect end to the year and he thanked the England side for coming to India and playing some good cricket.

“ I’d like to thank the England team for coming and playing in India. They’ve proved that India is not an unsafe place. We had good cricket over the series.

Even the first Test, it went to the last day and was interesting.

Our bowlers were good, the batsmen were good. So in all, it was 10 days of very good cricket,” Dhoni said.

Dhoni revealed that going for a win on the last day here was always going to be an uphill task.

“ It's not always so easy. There was not much wear and tear. We were leading the series 1- 0 and it wasn't 100 percent sure that if we put them in to chase, we’d get them out to win the series 2- 0.” For Dhoni, one of the biggest plusses has been the return of Zaheer Khan, who was declared the man of the series here.

“ He’s excellent. The execution of the plans is important, and he’s very clear in his thoughts. He plans against each and every batsman and when you go in the middle, he’s ready with his plans. I feel he has transformed himself into a thinking cricketer.” Defending the decision to declare late in the second innings, Dhoni said: “ Gambhir and Yuvraj were playing extremely well and we wanted them to score their centuries before declaring the innings.”

“ We were already leading in the series and were not at all worried. We did not want to give England any chance to win the match. There were many things in mind as we cannot predict anything before because of the rambling weather and wanted to remain on the safe side,” said Dhoni And now that Rahul Dravid has regained his form, all eleven members of the team look in excellent nick and should be well prepared to take on New Zealand after the twomonth break.

For England, the series defeat did have its share of positives as well. Andrew Strauss scored a century in each innings in Chennai and off- spinner Graeme Swann troubled the Indian batsmen all through the series. They dominated the first three days of the opening Test but had no result to show for their efforts.  “ We can take a lot of positives from the series. We came here with very little preparation for the series in white clothing. India have played fantastic cricket and are on top of their game, especially in India.

But we gave ourselves a good chance in Chennai,” Pietersen said.  “ A few guys have done exceptionally well out here. It was tough to come back in the circumstances.  It has been a tough two months with the Stanford series, the 5- 0 defeat in the ODIs and then being pipped at the post in Chennai. Our guys have done really well and deserve the break in Christmas.”