The match will now be replayed tomorrow. India had batted extremely well to pile up a score of 208 from 32 overs, with rahul dravid again distinguishing himself.

The retrospective disadvantage of batting first in a rain-affected one-day match is devastating. On this occasion, heavy rain early in the morning delayed the start by 75 minutes and the match began as a 44-overs-a-side contest.

There was plenty of damp lying around the ground and india, who were put in to bat, had to contend with a constantly moving ball delivered with great accuracy by chris cairns and dion nash.

But with the overs reduced, early momentum had to be picked up and saurav ganguly chanced his arm in the second over only to top-edge a pull.

This reverse and the quality of the bowling compelled sachin tendulkar and rahul dravid to exercise restraint and the score was only 15 as the end of the seventh over, when there was a sudden onset of rain, which lasted long enough for the quota of side's overs to be further curtailed to 32.

It was quite an achievement on india's part to score 193 from the 25 overs that remained available . Of these, tendulkar and dravid got 69 from just nine after the resumpion. Tendulkar hit two fours and two mighty sixes.

Dravid, though not that volatile, was artful in improvising and hardly lagged behind his partner.

A ball after he had lifted gavin lassen for his second six, tendulkar leapt out again, this time to pull him to mid-wicket, missed and was brilliantly stumped.

Dravid was the more dominating partner in a stand with azharuddin both put on 54 in eight overs before dravid mishit a pull and was caught at long-leg for 62 scored from 71 balls, with five fours and a six. More rd pr ar-ip gs1449 mumbai 14 48

Cricket lead india two last wellington

Soon after, new zealand had two opportunities to get rid of azharuddin. On the first one, cairns made a great effort to catch him at mid-wicket, of a pull off larsen. The second-time-round he was offered a much easier chance off chris drum. In between these two reprieves, azharuddin plundered 16 runs, including a pulled six off chris harris.

Azharuddin, who scored 52 off only 44 balls, and jadeja together put on 57 from seven overs before the indian skipper was caught at long. Only seven balls of the innings remained, but jadeja and robin singh looted 13 runs off them.

According to the duckworth/lewis system, new zealand had to get four runs in excess of india's total to win. But unlike india, whose innings was so badly disrupted, new zealand had the advantage of having a target to aim at.

India gained ascendancy by removing in the first seven overs matthew home and craig mcmillan, the two batsmen who have taken heavy toll of their bowling in the previous matches. Home was caught behind off a superb ball from prasad and mcmillan miscued a steepler off srinath to be caught at mid-on.

But bryan young, who came into the squad as a replacement for stephen fleming, ran amok and was 52 not out in a score of 82 made from only 12 overs when it rained again with great force to put paid to the match.