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 Indians gifted yet another match and the one-day series to New Zealand who demolished them easily in this resort town today. Their batting nightmare continued as the visitors were shot out for 122, a target the New Zealanders overtook comfortably to win by seven wickets and go 4-0 up in the seven-match series. The Indians had lost both the Test matches and now continue to remain winless in the tour. A substantial crowd and beautiful surrounding hills witnessed another embarrassing display of mindless batting by the Indians who failed for the fourth successive time in the series to last their allocated 50 overs.
Unlike the seamer-friendly wickets in the earlier matches, the strip here was good for batting. But the Indian players, who have become enormously rich selling soft drinks, TV sets and other goodies to cricket crazy millions at home, were unwilling to learn any lessons from their previous failures on this disastrous tour. They batted poorly to inflict another humiliating defeat on themselves. Unlike in the previous games, the Indians got off to a good start after being put in to bat by New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming. But a familiar middle-order collapse, triggered by irresponsible shot-making and some fine bowling and fielding performance from the hosts, saw the platform being wasted. India were shot out in 43.4 overs, the longest that they have lasted in this series.
Medium-pacer Andre Adams celebrated his return to the New Zealand side with a career-best five-wicket haul. His 5-22 from 8.4 overs was also the best figures by a New Zealand bowler against India. Once again not a single Indian batsman could reach even the 30s with Yuvraj Singh’s patient 25 being the top-score of the innings. Virender Sehwag (23) and Rahul Dravid (18) were the other useful scorers for the team that once again lacked the services of its star batsman Sachin Tendulkar, missing the fourth consecutive match due to a sprained ankle. In contrast, New Zealand raced to their target in just 25.4 overs with Fleming signalling a return to form with a strokeful 47 which included five fours and one six. The dangerous Nathan Astle was out for 15 but Fleming and Matthew Sinclair, who remained unbeaten on 32, put on 73 runs for the second wicket to ensure that New Zealand’s road to victory was smooth.
 Srinath, who claimed all the three wickets, dismissed Fleming and out-of-form Craig McMillan (0) in quick succession but with just 20 more runs required, the hosts were hardly under any threat. Sinclair and Scott Styris, who remained not out on eight, knocked off the remaining runs without much problems. The Indians could not have asked for a more idyllic setting or a better pitch to bounce back into the series. The visitors left out a struggling V V S Laxman for Dinesh Mongia and even excluded Harbhajan Singh to accommodate an extra batsman in wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel who made his one-day debut today. But it hardly made any difference to their fortunes.
Ironically, the tourists had their best start of the series so far. Dravid, India's most impressive batsman on this tour, was surprisingly sent to open the innings with Sehwag and the two gave a cautious start putting on 38 runs.
Sehwag became the first victim of Adams, being caught in the slips after making 23 and Dravid followed him 17 runs later, clean bowled by the same bowler. That triggered an all-too-familiar collapse that saw Mohammad Kaif, Mongia and Sourav Ganguly being dismissed for the addition of 14 runs. Kaif, who was promoted in the batting order, played a nice-looking shot but straight into the hands of McMillan at mid-wicket to be out for nought while Mongia wasted a promising start when he fell into a trap and hooked a short delivery from Adams to be caught at fine leg by Daniel Vettori after making 12 runs. But the crown for the most rash stroke of the innings was taken by Ganguly himself when the captain made a wild slash at a widish delivery from Daryl Tuffey to give a simple catch to Kyle Mills at deep backward point. Ganguly made only two.
 Patel and Yuvraj Singh put on a small partnership of 25 runs, the diminutive wicketkeeper contributing 13 of those before being bowled off an inside edge off Mills. That once again left Yuvraj Singh to bat with the tail-enders. Yuvraj Singh showed a desire to stay at the wicket and batted sensibly before flamboyant instincts got the better of him. He pulled Scott Styris to mid-wicket fence where he was caught spectacularly by Tuffey. In between, Ajit Agarkar (0) and Zaheer Khan (1) had been dismissed without making much contribution to the scoreboard. Adams completed his five-wicket haul when he had Nehra caught by wicketkeeper Brandon McCullum for nought. Srinath remained unbeaten on 10. New Zealand openers Astle and Fleming put their team on the fast track to victory, mindful of the clouds that had started gathering over the picturesque stadium. The fall of Astle in Srinath's third over did nothing to reduce the urgency of the New Zealanders who batted comfortably on an easy-paced wicket.
Fleming, who had so far struggled to time the ball, got going today and hit a few flowing drives and also a six off Agarkar to the fine leg boundary. Fleming and Sinclair brought up the team's 100 in the 20th over before Srinath struck twice in quick succession. Srinath finished with figures of three for 35 from 9.4 overs. Today’s result rendered the next three day-night matches - to be played in Wellington (January 8), Auckland (January 11) and Hamilton (January 14) - inconsequential.
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