The second Test between India and New Zealand at McLean Park in Napier ended in a draw on Monday (30th March). Both teams agreed to call off the play with India at 476/4 following-on in their second innings on the 5th day of the test. With this, draw India lead the series 1-0, with one Test to go. At the end of the play, VVS Laxman and Yuvraj Singh were not out at their individual score of 124 and 54 respectively. Jesse Ryder was declared as the man of the match for his superb double century.

 

Earlier, India opener Gautam Gambhir played a superb innings of 137 from 436 balls and patiently batted for 642 minutes. Although India was lagging behind in the first three days of the test, Indian batsman showed up their mettle in the 4th and 5th day. In their follow-on second innings all batters contributed their part to save the test except Virender Sehwag. Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar scored 62 and 64 respectively.

 

Earlier, New Zealand won the toss and elected to bat. Before declaring their first innings, they put up a mammoth total of 619/9 with the help of a double century by Jesse Ryder (201), and centuries from Ross Taylor (151) and Brandum McCullum (115). In chase, India struggled from the very beginning with the loss of Sehwag and Gambhir. Later on Dravid (83), Tendulkar (49) and Laxman (76) fought back but could not avoid the follow-on as India can only accumulate 305/10 in their first innings.

 

This was not at all a bowlers' test because for Indian side highest wicket-takers were Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma with 3 wickets each. For New Zealand side Chris Martin (3+1) and Jeetan Patel (2+2) took four wickets each while captain Daniel Vettori took three wickets (2+1) in two innings.