India got historic Test series victory in New Zealand

April 8, 2009 - PRLog -- Indian cricket team has bagged their test series triumph on New Zealand soil after 41 years. Though rain has interrupted last day game and denied Indians from their well deserving 2-0 series victory still they managed to bring smiles on faces of crores of people back here at India with their excellent performance.

Rain spoiled the last day play and push the India from 2-0 win in series and the hosts got a chance of escaping with a draw  after they were down in front of Indian bowling and were 281 for 8 in the post lunch session. They were chasing somehow an impossible wining target of 617.

In this series of three test matches, visitors got their first won in Hamilton where they beat hosts by 10 wickets. In spite of the second Napier test match draw, India ended long awaited wait of 41 years for victory in New Zealand. Earlier under captaincy of Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, India drubbed the Kiwis in the year 1968 by 3-1.

Indians well deserved the victory as they outshine the Kiwis in throughout the match and took 4 wickets in just over a session before rain intervened the match for 30 minutes into post lunch session when Daniel Vettori was on the crease at 15 along with Iain O'Brien, who was on 19.

India was hoping to get their 100th test victory when covers were taken off to resume the interrupted post lunch session. But that hope also disappeared when rain immediately returned in the form of heavy downpour. At 1015 hrs IST, match was finally called off, nearly before one and half hours of scheduled time.

Zaheer Khan got 5 wickets in first innings and ended the match with 7 wickets figure for 122 runs. Harbhajan Singh had 4 for 59 second essay and had match figures of 7/52.

After being getting frustrated for over one hour by Ross Taylor (107) and James Franklin (49), India succeeded in getting 3 wickets during morning session. They both stitched a long partnership of 142 runs for the 5 wicket. Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar got 2 important wickets of Brendon McCullum and Franklin in the last 15 minutes morning session.

Indian batsmen also gave their superb performances with Gautam Gambhir topped the lost. Gambhir notched a ton in the last match and second 100s in the whole series. He put the team in a formidable position with 349 for 5 in their second innings when play was stopped early due to bad lights on the third day.

Put into bat, the Indian side adopted an aggressive approach as Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman showed notable performances and scored 60 & 61 runs respectively. Bhajji got a chance of showing his bat power as he scored 60 runs in first innings where Zaheer Khan made 33 runs.  

(A) Ist Innings

India = 379/10
New Zealand= 197/10

(B) 2nd Innings

India = 434/7
New Zealand= 281/8


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