India, NZ Forced To Split Points

India's hope of a win came to a premature end as heavy downpour forced abandonment of the opening match of the TVS Cup triangular tournament against New Zealand at the M.A. Chidambaram stadiumin Chennai tonight.

Both the teams earned three points each from the day-night encounter. India take on Australia in another matchunder lights at Gwalior on Sunday.

This is only the fourth occasion in 70 matches between the two countries that has gone without a result.

India had won on 34 occasions and lost to New Zealand 32 times. The teams split points in the third one-dayer inWellington in 1998-99 and at Colombo, twice, in the 1997-1998 Singer Cup tri-nation tournmament withSri Lanka as the third team.

Even as mopping up operations were in full swing, a second downpour sealed the fate of the match when India werestruggling at 141 for three with Sachin Tendulkar (48) and Yuvraj Singh (29) at the crease, after Virender Sehwag, V.V.S.Laxman and Rahul Dravid had returned to the pavilion.

The first suspension of the game came ten minutes before the skies actually opened out when play was halted for 16minutes due to bad light.

The floodlights were switched on about half hour before the scheduled time (4.30 pm) but the passing clouds envelopedover the stadium and Tendulkar's appeal for bad light was upheld by umpires David Sheperd and A.V.Jayaprakash.

After Dravid won a good toss, Sehwag and Tendulkar got off to a solid start with the former inhis usual flamboyant style, going for the leather. 

Sehwag was more aggressive after earning a reprieve in the very second over of the innings whenChris Cairns failed to hold on to the ball near the boundary ropes. Daryl Tuffeywas the sufferer.

Tendulkar might have been unfortunate since the rain came while he rediscovering his form followinga not so remarkable performance in the two Tests.

While wickets were falling at the other end, Tendulkar held up his end despite struggling a bit against both Tuffey and Jacob Oram in the initial stages. Also, he did not get to bat much and had faced only 42 balls in the first 20overs.

However, it was good for the Indian team that Tendulkar got into his form in the opener of the vital three-nationseries.

The collapse that followed was typical of the Indian batting as both thein-form Laxman and stand-in captain  Dravid refused to occupy the crease on a good batting strip where the ball was coming on to the bat.

They were rather impatient in their shot selection and India lost three wickets for 40 runs in 6.5overs. All three wickets fell when New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming brought about change ofbowlers at each end.

Sehwag played a forgettable shot, cutting at a Cairns delivery that was too straight for sucha treatment.

Cairns had replaced Tuffey from the pavilion end and Sehwag had made 31 runs in 40 minutes off 29 balls with five foursand a six before playing Cairns on to the wicket.

Sehwag also made sure that he raised the 50 partnership with Tendulkar for the first wicket from 8.4 overs at a rateof little over five runs an over.

When Laxman walked in to replace Sehwag, one hoped that he would continue his good battingperformance displayed during the last fortnight in the Tests but he flickered for awhile, making 25 from 23 balls including five sumptuous pulls and drives before Scott Styris silenced the crowd.

It was an intended pull by Laxman, who in the same over drove Styris to the square leg but unwittingly gave astraight-forward catch to Kyle Mills substituting for Tuffey.

Dravid also did not stay long and his bid to charge out to an half-volley was unbecoming of a captain. He tried to flick Vettori to wide mid-on but ended up giving a low catch to Styris atmid-wicket.

His eight minute stay at the wicket yielded him just four runs.

PTI