New Delhi, Aug. 8 -- When the fifth and final Test of the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy ended on Monday, all of India was in a state of collective euphoria. When Mohammed Siraj took the final wicket and jumped into the Cristiano Ronaldo-inspired celebration, many in the country would have jumped with him. And among those many would have been the usually grumpy India coach Gautam Gambhir too. It was a much needed result for the team and for Gambhir, especially after the series' against New Zealand (where India lost 0-3) and in Australia (where India lost 1-3). If India had lost the Oval Test, they would have gone down 3-1 against England. A losing run against three teams that still attach importance to the longer format would have not gone down well - with the Board of Control for Cricket in India and the demanding fans. But the result offers some breathing room for the team management; it offers belief; it offers confidence. And these are all things that they can feed off in the long run. They keep the dressing room buzzing and allow the team to develop a bond that will serve them well even in difficult times. It can serve as the building block that the team will be built around. "The way this series has panned out, 2-2 is an outstanding result. Congratulations to everyone," Gambhir started in his speech in the dressing room. "Remember, you will keep getting better. We keep working on it, we keep improving because if we keep doing that, we can dominate Test cricket for a very long period." "People will come and go, but the culture of the dressing room should always be like that. People want to be part of this culture, that is what we want to create," Gambhir added. Beyond the words, the trick for Gambhir will be to convince the team that this was not a one-off. The great Test teams do the repeatable things well - they don't depend on magic balls or once-in-a-lifetime innings. They don't have to dodge bullets either. Do the simple things well and you wouldn't need that on most days. This young Indian team has shown heart and resilience but what they truly need is consistency and that is where Gambhir will need to step in. The tactics, whether it was team selection or field placements, needed some refining and maybe nudging the young skipper Shubman Gill in the right direction could help. Siraj was superb when it mattered - but an average of 32.43 and a strike-rate of 48.39 show that he can be better. The same is true of his pace-bowling support cast. India, as a team, dropped a total of 23 catches during the series and that is never good. The batting, as good as it was with 12 hundreds being scored by the visitors, had sudden collapses to contend with. And there were some objectionable picks - from Anshul Kamboj to the manner in which Washington Sundar was used. This will also be a time for Gambhir to evaluate whether Test cricket is all that he thought it was. He has played the game and his partnership with Virender Sehwag at the top of the order was once counted among the best in the world. But the game has changed and that is something we saw during the series too. So should he stick to his plan or now start to tweak them? The batting, led by Gill, has risen to the challenge but the inconsistency of the bowling allied with the injury troubles of Jaspit Bumrah means that we never quite know what we will get. It could veer from the sublime that we saw at the end of the match to the innocuous at the start of the innings. Under the previous bowling coach Bharat Arun, the team found consistency. The plans were simple and the execution was spot-on. With the exception of Siraj, all the others bowlers are new and they will need to be drilled well. It helps that many in the team seem to have a good relationship with bowling coach Morne Morkel but he will need to lay down the law. Tactically, the team chose to shore up the batting to guard against the batting collapses but is that going to be their consistent fallback option? Or will they choose to go with more bowlers when needed? As things stand, it is a big departure from how Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma did things but as long as they get the desired results, it doesn't really matter. There is a big learning curve for both, Gill and Gambhir, to deal with but perhaps that is what will get them truly on the same page. The Indian team has come a long way from Chappell's 'process', Dhoni's 'take it deep', Kohli's 'intent' and Rohit's 'walks in the garden'. This squad will win some, they'll lose some but as Gambhir said on X, they'll "never surrender." And maybe that will be their USP -- a team that will never stay down for the count....