Day 2: India is still on top after the end of the day as expected. The New Zealand spinners got rid of the strong Indian middle-order in pretty quickly, but they struggled to get past the lower order as Harban Singh scored his career best 69 off jus 97 deliveries which included 3 sixes.
The crowd was expecting to see a century from Tendulkar on this ground as he has a pretty good record at this ground but they were bit disappointed by not seeing his 50th test century.
Even though Bhajji kept the things going under his control and entertained the crowd with some off his shots while reaching towards his half century.
The Indian middle-order had a fairly bad day as they could not become able to do much and were gone for just few runs. As soon as Tendulkar was gone by Jeetan Patel just 10 short of his fifty while he was trying to punch the length ball their was more for the Kiwi's to celebrate as Raina was already struggling and gave his wicket to Kane Williamson who in this way got his first Test wicket, while Laxman was done lbw by Patel though Laxman looked quite unhappy with the decision.
Dhoni was caught at forward short leg of an inside edge for just 10 runs. Zaheer Khan soon followed his captain and was bowled by Vettori. l.
Harbhajan carried the show after the dismissal of Zaheer Khan and troubled the New Zealand bowlers with Ojha playing a supportive role with Harbhajan.
These both helped India reach a huge total of 487, though Harbhajan again fell short of his maiden century which was one of his personal and team goal.
New Zealand came to bat with Brendon McCollum as an opener for the first time since 2004 and he started with some aggressive shots to the boundary though his opening counterpart Tim McIntosh went to pavilion without scoring to the Indian pace spearhead Zaheer Khan who was bowling with a good pace and swing straight from the first over which indeed was a maiden and BJ Watling was bowled by Ojha as he played down the wrong line and was gone for 6 runs.
Then came Taylor and he along with McCollum prevented further damage to New Zealand and ended the day for 69/2.
The day was much better for them as compared to the previous day which was spoiled by wracking shots by Sehwag and some greatly timed by Dravid.
Still at the end of the day things didn’t get changed much and the hosts are in the game as favorites.
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