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 The New Year brought no change to the fast plummeting fortunes of the struggling Indian team with its batsmen again floundering on a seamer-friendly wicket to lose the third successive one-dayer to New Zealand here yesterday. In a re-run of their embarrassing batting in the two Tests and the earlier two one-day matches, all of which they lost during this horrid tour, the Indians were shot out for 108, a target the home team easily surpassed to win by five wickets.
Four more one-dayers remained to be played but the Indians already seemed to have given up. Sachin Tendulkar was again unable to play due to injury, but the performance of the other Indian batsmen would have dented their morale ahead of next month’s World Cup even though the wickets prepared by the hosts have been far from ideal for batting. The visitors were bundled out within their quota of 50 overs for the third successive time.
 Skipper Sourav Ganguly made a seemingly bold decision by opting to bat first on a wicket that looked quite conducive to seam bowling. But his plans came unstuck when one after the other of his batsmen returned to the pavilion without making much impression. The plight of the Indians could be gauged from the fact that the 22 extras made the highest contribution to the scoresheet. Rahul Dravid came near to that, scoring 20, while Mohammad Kaif managed 17 as only four batsmen could get into the double figures.
The captain himself once again struggled to put bat to ball, except for the edges, and was out for four, becoming one of the five batsmen to be caught by wicketkeeper Brendan McCullam. The New Zealand bowlers flourished on another helpful wicket with Paul Hitchcock doing the maximum damage by claming three wickets. Daryl Tuffey and Jacob Oram took two wickets each.
 Even as the Indians were at their wits’ end against the seaming ball, the New Zealand batsmen hardly had any problems even though they lost five important wickets on their way to victory. Skipper Stephen Fleming continued his miserable run and was out for four, but Nathan Astle hit a blazing 32 that put New Zealand in a very comfortable position. Astle completely unsettled Javagal Srinath, hitting him for five boundaries in the fifth over of the innings which produced 22 runs.
Except for a brief period when Zaheer Khan and Ajit Agarkar created some problems for the batsmen after the fall of the first two wickets, the hosts' victory never looked in doubt.
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