McCullum and Watling secured New Zealand – 2nd Test vs. India

New Zealand 192 and 6-571 (Brendon McCullum 281*, BJ Watling 124, Jimmy Neesham 67*, Zaheer Khan 3-129) leads India 438 (Ajinkya Rahane 118, Shikhar Dhawan 98, Tim Southee 3-93) by 325 runs with four wickets in hand.

A career’s best unbeaten 281 by the Black Caps skipper, Brendon McCullum, and a ton by BJ Watling, guided their side towards the series win against India.

The hosts were restricted to 192 in their first innings but they responded superbly in the second one by amassing 571 after losing six wickets. India batted well in their first innings and managed 438 runs.

The fourth day’s play came to an end on Monday, February 17, 2014, at Basin Reserve, Wellington.

Brendon McCullum and BJ Watling - A match winning partnership of 352 runs
Brendon McCullum and BJ Watling – A match winning partnership of 352 runs

Earlier, the Kiwis started the day at 5-252 in 99 overs after recovering from an innings defeat. Brendon McCullum along with BJ Watling were in the center with 114 and 52 runs. The duo took off from where they left on the previous day and kept on consolidating the innings without taking any risk. McCullum crossed the 150 runs mark with a four and the pair took the score to 347 in 127 overs at lunch interval.

The wicketkeeper batsman, BJ Watling, smashed his third Test century and his captain powered his third Test double in the 144th over. It was the consecutive double hundred by Brendon McCullum and he joined Stephen Fleming with three double centuries for New Zealand. The sixth wicket marvellous partnership of 352 runs was finally broken at 446 when BJ Watling was declared leg before wicket off Mohammed Shami for 124 off 367 balls with 13 fours.

Jimmy Neesham joined in next with McCullum who kept on cruising forcefully at the other side. The latter went past his 250 with a six and hammered 500 runs in the series while the first attained his maiden Test fifty in the 185th over. The score reached 571 after 189 overs at stumps on day four whereas Brendon McCullum and Neesham held their end with 281 and 67 runs respectively.

New Zealand has taken an overall lead of 325 runs and they are in a position to clinch the series vs. India at 1-0 or even 2-0.


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