New Zealand complete clean sweep with tense four-wicket win For New Zealand Christmas came early this time around. At Hamilton on Sunday, the home team hung on to eke out a four-wicket win over India and sweep the two-Test series 2-0. Earlier, the visitors became the first side in Test cricket history to gain a first-innings lead after being bowled out for a sub-100 total. After the being dismissed for 99 on Saturday morning, Sourav Ganguly's men shot out New Zealand for 94. Zaheer Khan (5-29) was the man responsible for gaining his team a once improbable five-run lead. When the Indians batted for the second time, they managed to post 154 all out thanks to Rahul Dravid (39) and Sachin Tendulkar (32). Chasing a target of 160 was not going to be easy for New Zealand, but with the wicket easing out on the fourth morning, their batsmen led by captain Stephen Fleming (32) went on overhaul the target despite suffering a few jitters on the way. New Zealand medium-pacer Daryl Tuffey, who claimed 8-53 in the two Indian innings, was deservedly named the Man of the Match.

Ganguly rues the fact India did not have more runs to play with Sourav Ganguly was left lamenting the fact his batsmen had not been able to score another 40-50 runs and shut New Zealand out of the Hamilton Test that ended on Sunday. Chasing 160 to win in the fourth innings, New Zealand got home by four wickets to seal a 2-0 series win. "It's really disappointing that we failed to win an away Test series again," Ganguly admitted. The Indian skipper said that he didn't want to make any excuses but there had only been two 50s from the Indian batsmen and one from the New Zealanders in four innings for each side in the series. "That would show that it was not an easy time for the batsmen," he said. His counterpart Stephen Fleming also agreed that the pitch was a difficult one to bat on. It had been caused by the weather, the New Zealand skipper acknowledged. "I guess we're caught in the middle where the groundsmen are preparing bouncy wickets which is great, and I've been an advocate for that for a long time. Unfortunately, we are having to put up with the sideways movement as well because of the weather these guys are getting to prepare wickets," he observed. Man of the Match Daryl Tuffey, for his part, felt he bowled best in the second innings of the game, when he had to work harder and wasn't as fresh. "The partnership between [Sachin] Tendulkar and [Rahul] Dravid was the key one for us to break and once we got Tendulkar out, they let us right off again and a procession of wickets fell again and it really got us back in the match. They could easily have taken it away from us," he said.

McCullum drafted into New Zealand squad for first two ODIs New Zealand have included wicketkeeper Brendon McCullum in place of Chris Nevin for the first two ODIs against India. Among the notable absentees from the 12-man squad that New Zealand chairman of selectors Richard Hadlee named on Sunday were the injured trio of Chris Cairns, Chris Harris and Andre Adams. All-rounder Scott Styris has meanwhile been dropped. "The door is by no means shut and the onus is on him (Styris) and others to score some runs and take some wickets at domestic level," Hadlee said, after making the announcement. The seven-match ODI series between the two sides starts in Auckland on Thursday and continues in Napier next Sunday. The squad: Stephen Fleming (capt), Nathan Astle, Shane Bond, Paul Hitchcock, Kyle Mills, Brendon McCullum, Craig McMillan, Jacob Oram, Daryl Tuffey, Mathew Sinclair, Daniel Vettori, Lou Vincent.

Take a walk down Memory Lane and relive Kapil Dev's last Test series with our 'Nostalgia' feature. Click Here Get all your cricketing questions answered. Just Ask Philip. Click Here The one-stop shop for cricketing merchandise. You want it, we have it at CricShop. Click Here