The Indian fightback occurred after lunch. Srinath, who struggled with his line and length yesterday, bowled a magnificent 8-over spell, which brought about the dismissal of Craig McMillan. His performance lifted the team in the field, while Kumble attacked and kept things tight at the other end, picking up the wickets of Parore and Astle.

But, there was further frustration for India, as Dion Nash and Daniel Vettori added anunbroken 82 for the eighth wicket. Nash, scored his second Test half-century and equalled his previous best of 56 and Vettori, whose highest score is 90, defied the Indian attack and the second new ball, to lift New Zealand to 290-7 at stumps. The Indian bowlers could not dislodge the two batsmen, who dug in with dogged determination to keep their wickets intact.

Azharuddin's captaincy was quite inspirational at times. Ganguly had been fielding at bat-pad, about 10 metres from the bat, and Srinath probably felt that he needed the fielder in much closer than that. Dravid took over as the bat-pad fielder, and standing much closer to the bat took a brilliant one-handed reflex catch, low to his right off the next delivery, to dismiss McMillan who looked to be in a threatening mood.

Scoreboard

India (1st innings): 208

New Zealand (1st innings; overnight 52-1): Matthew Bell c Mongia b Prasad 4, Matthew Horne b Kumble 38, Stephen Fleming run out (Jadeja) 42, Nathan Astle b Kumble 56, CraigMcMillan c Dravid b Srinath 24, Adam Parore lbw Kumble 2, Chris Cairns c Tendulkar b Prasad 3, Dion Nash batting 56, Daniel Vettori batting 35; Extras (lb17, b8, nb5): 30. Total (for 7 wkts, 112 overs): 290

Fall Of Wickets: 1-7, 2-79, 3-112, 4-162, 5-172, 6-179, 7-208.

Bowling: Srinath 30-4-81-1 (5 nb), Prasad 23-6-57-2, Kumble 37-14-67-3, Harbhajan 16-3-47-0, Ganguly 6-0-13-0.