Needing 269 to make South Africa bat again, New Zealand resumed on the final morning at four without loss. With Twose (65) batting four hours and Astle (69 not out) nearly three hours, the home side lost just three wickets all day, one in each session.

Twose refused to play a shot in anger against any of the South African bowlers apart from spinner Paul Adams whom he hit for four fours and four sixes. Adams, striving desperately to spin the ball, bowled at least one full toss and long hop per over.

The chunky left hander's resolute mixture of attack and defence was reflected in the figures for his innings of 65 off 185 balls in exactly four hours with six fours and four sixes. He was eventually caught low down at slip off the bowling of Lance Klusener.

The morningsession witnessed the departure of Matthew Bell, top edging a hook into the hands of Allan Donald at fine leg for six while the afternoon session saw Matthew Horne score his second half century of the match before departing for 60.

Horne was bowled by a perfect Paul Adams' delivery for 93 in the first innings but fell in the second to a long hop which he attempted to pull but instead deflected from pad to shoulder to boot before it trickled on to the leg stump. His 60 spanned 121 balls in two and three quarter hours.

In contrast to Horne and Twose, Astle initially paid scant respect to some desperate bowling and raced to 50 from just 62 balls with eight fours and a glorious six, driven over extra cover. The bowler, inevitably, was Adams.

Astle, though, ground to a defensive halt after reaching 50, scoring just 19 more runs from 71 balls.

There was a surreal atmosphere for much of the day with Jacques Kallis, normally a frontline seamer, resorting to two overs of hopeless, lobbed leg spinners justbefore lunch and Jonty Rhodes twice clambering up a two metre wall to retrieve the ball from the under-construction North Stand.

``I don't want to take anything away from the batsmen, because both sides batted really, really well. But a wicket like this doesn't do the game any favours, does it?'' asked SA coach Bob Woolmer after the match.

``Cricket is competing for crowds with a lot of other sports. We need to entertain,'' Woolmer said.

The pitch was criticised for much of the Test after being controversially held together by a covering of wood glue. Eden Park groundstaff, worried that the surface might crumble because of a lack of grass, resorted to the glue option but unwittingly killed the game as a spectacle.

SCOREBOARD

South Africa (1st innings): 621-5 decl

New Zealand (1st innings): 352

New Zealand (2nd innings): Matthew Horne b Adams 60, Matthew Bell c Donald b Pollock 6, Roger Twose c Cullinan b Klusener 65, Nathan Astle not out 69, Craig McMillan not out 22; Extras (b13,lb2, nb5, w2): 22. Total (three wickets, 84 overs): 244

Fall Of Wickets: 1-15, 2-104, 3-193

Bowling: Kallis 13-0-61-0, Pollock 13-5-21-1, Donald 9-2-20-0, Klusener 13-6-26-1, Adams 30-11-96-1, Cronje 6-4-5-0.