Captain Virat Kohli described Saturday’s 63-run win over South Africa in the third and final Test at the Wanderers as "a massive milestone" for Indian cricket.
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Kohli said India's performance on a pitch designed to help South Africa's fast bowlers showed they could win in any conditions.
"This is one of our sweetest wins," he said. "This day will be remembered for a long time for us as a team."
"We already had the belief but now we have the result to back that as well."
Kohli added Saturday's win, achieved on the fourth afternoon after South Africa lost their last nine wickets for 53 runs, ranked as one of the finest he had been involved in as a player.
He compared it to a win under Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s captaincy against England at Lord’s in 2014.
Asked whether he was concerned that South Africa were taking control during a second wicket stand of 119 between Dean Elgar and Hashim Amla, which took the hosts to within 117 runs of their victory target of 241, Kohli said: “I don’t think like people on the outside,” adding that he knew that if one wicket fell it could lead to a collapse on a difficult pitch.
The win entrenched India as the world's number one Test team. If South Africa had completed a 3-0 series sweep they would have drawn level on points with Kohli's men.
“South Africa played better than us in the first two games so they deserved to win (the series) but we deserved to win this game. But at many moments in the first two games we put them under pressure," added Kohli.
“We are the number one team in the world and we certainly played like that today.”
South Africa captain Faf du Plessis admitted that India had been the better team at the Wanderers but hailed the series win.
"It’s fantastic to win the series against a really good team. Credit to India for playing some really good cricket in all three Tests."
