New Zealand vs India, 2nd ODI at Wellington, Mar 06 2009 - Ball by Ball Commentary

8:23 pm Abandoned. Game has been called off. This is Sriram Veera, signing off. Let's crash more sites in the next game. Till then, Good bye and good luck. For now, please hop to the South Africa V Australia game. Hopefully, it will be another cracker of a contest.

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Umpires meet again. And they are off the park. The crowd boo! The groundstaff rush in with the covers. Rain is getting heavier.This should mean that the Indian innings is over. Will confirm after we get the official news.

Alex from NZ sends us this: "At any given time a New Zealander can reach out and touch a sheep." No more dirty details please!

MK from Canada: "Why bother? India should just cancel the tour and go back home. I am amazed that Cricket is actually played in NZ."

Pankaj: "The Northern Islands have almost 75% of the population with Auckland region alone accounting for over a million or so. That's where you find most of the desis, and they probably fit your techie profile (25-35 yrs old moving in all guy groups). At least thats what I saw. The other bigger cities hardly have any population, leave alone desis [Indians]. Christchurch has probably less population than Marol [a place in Mumbai]. The annual tourist to inhabitants ratio in most of the cities is also 5-7:1. This means, that in peak season, the tourists easily outnumber the locals in most cities except Auckland."

Matt from OZ: "What else would you expect from a Canadian? You guys don't even play cricket."

Kody: "Whats all this nonsense about sheep? ... that pitch will be soaked by now!"

Cam from NZ comes back with this! : "Is it time to point out that Cows wander down the streets of several Indian cities?"

Luke: "To that guy who commented about cricket played in nz, our winter is warmer than canadas summer!! its all just bad luck, im sitting at home at 19.15 and its 24degrees at night...no rain"

Ok ... I will take a short break now.

Jimmy from Canada: "Hey Cricket is played in Canada. Played in the two world cups if you remember."

Dwaipayan Chakravarty: "Talking about the D/L method... what does everyone think of the "JD" Method or Jayadevan Calculation that the rebel ICL is using instead of D/L? See here. Some say that the J Method has a slight advantage." hmmm

Aman: "For all the nerds out there, check out the D/L website and their calculator. It's a lot of fun.

Sri: "Looks like you just crashed the site..."Service Unavailable" There we go again.

Sandeep: "That's the 6th website you have brought down today!"

Update at 7.36 pm The umpires came out for inspection now but as soon as they stepped on the field, it started raining again.

ok one last comment about sheep. From Shaz: "I'm from India but based in Sydney the past two years..I was in NZ for a long tour last June and can only say this...what a beautiful country. The sheep just add to all of the stunning scenery! Christchurch was my favourite place in NZ..such a peaceful, lovely city!" Sid Monga, our man in NZ on this tour, says he doesn't want to come back. He has fallen in love with NZ.

8:14 pm It's still raining.

William from UK: "Can someone please explain to me why Daniel has saved his bowling for overs that it was obvious even to my neighbour's cat were never going to be bowled ?" does the cat play cricket?

Dan: "I'd like to meet the cat who is a better judge of the game than Vettori - one of the most astute captains around. Dan is not omnipotent, nor does he work for the metservice - how was he meant to predict the weather?"

Vijay: "William good one about the cat there. but if you noticed Dan had trouble gripping the ball and had a tough time wiping it dry as it got wet due to the damp pitch and outfield. Its better to go with the pacers and medium fast men rather than bowling himself or anyother spinner for that matter."

According to Mathew Varghese, our in-house stats fan, New Zealand will need 218 in 28 overs. (Assumption is we will get in a 28-over game)

The umpires have a chat. The game to continue. The rain has eased off a bit.

Rain has got heavier. Vettori wants to go off the field, or so the tv comms say, Rudi says bat on

Amit: "1:10......strange! Are those sheep owned by people or just forest sheep?" The sheep owns the people. Duh!

Shaz: "I disagree with Sundar...obviously the cricketers outside India are not hounded like they are in India but they are still hassled by the public! I went for the book signing ceremony when Gilchrist released his book and there was a queue of fans atleast 200 metres long outside the book store during peak lunch hour..during a week day..waiting for an autograph."

Ramadoss: "Indians' regarded as cricket fanatics is such a generalisation. I would enjoy my country playing cricket. "

Farmer Bob: "According to the latest Agricultural Production statistics, released by Statistics New Zealand's Agricultural Production team, there were 40.1 million estimated resident sheep at 30 June 2006, which means that the sheep-person ratio has halved in the last 20 years, and now stands at 10 sheep per person. see http://www.population.govt.nz/myth-busters/sheepmyth.htm