`Fools for luck' is not an idle saying - on a day when India seemed to be doing its best to throw the game away, fortune kept throwing it back in the team's lap. Finally, the team clung on - and ended day two far happier than they had been, 24 hours earlier.

Play was delayed, thanks to overnight rain. After several inspections, it was decided to resume at 3 pm local time, splitting the available time into two sessions - a 70-minute session before tea, followed by a two and a half session till stumps.

The Kiwis have been trying to take a leaf - actually, a whole chapter - out of Australia's attacking book. With time - and overs - being lost, the home side came out seemingly intent on cutting loose, and batting India out of the game. Opener Mark Richardson's fierce cut to point, off the first ball of the day from Zaheer Khan, signaled that intent.

Richardson, in fact, was your quintessential opener, playing on a testing track - bat always close to the body, head over the ball, and seemingly unwilling to let anything remotely wide of off get away without a thump.

His qualities were evident even on day one, when he left 43 per cent of the deliveries he faced, refusing to allow the bowlers a sniff of the edge, and yet played polished shots square of the wicket, and flicked off the pads like an Indian. Picking up from there, Richardson moved on to 49 at tea, while at the other end captain Stephen Fleming clung on gamely, though clearly lacking in form and match practice.

The 70 minute session had produced 39 runs.

The New Zealanders have just come off a protracted strike, and Fleming was in the thick of the negotiations. In the process, he has had little time for practice, and rust showed today as he scratched, prodded, plodded, and finally missed one that went through the gate onto off stump.

Sanjay Bangar appears to have taken over from his captain as India's lucky bowler. Late on day one, he bowled a rank bad ball and got a wicket. Today, given the ball ahead of Agarkar, rather surprisingly, he got a bit of lateral movement in to Craig McMillan, beat him on the flick and got him on the pad - LBW, said the umpire; a questionable call perhaps, but not more so than some that have gone before in this game.

The one thing Bangar has going for him is accuracy - he looks around at his field, listens to his captain, and then finds that line and holds on to it with limpet-like efficiency. Ganguly, for his part, opted for a passive gameplan - if the Kiwis want to score quick runs, I won't let them, he reckoned, and let Bangar play strangler in chief.

Occasionally, in course of play, the ball would go into the outfield, and Ajit Agarkar would field. It was only then that you realized he was in the team - after giving him three overs yesterday, the captain apparently had no use for him till the 43rd over, making you wonder what he was in the side for anyway. And then he got the ball, and Richardson's edge, in quick succession - only for VVS Laxman to drop a sitter in slips.

Richardson then was 63, and the chance was crucial. Ironically, Laxman had the reputation of being a safe slipper, of in fact having finally solved the problem of who would stand there after the departure of Azharuddin and the relegation of Tendulkar to the outfield - but both at home against the West Indies, and now here, he's let some dollies go, arguing a want of practice.

Nathan Astle joined Richardson, and promptly took on the bowling of Agarkar and Ganguly - meat and drink to an opener turned middle order batsman. Ganguly finally tossed the ball to Zaheer Khan - and the latter, as he so often had in England, responded with a snorter every bit as vicious as the delivery with which Bond took out Laxman yesterday. Astle apparently played for slow medium pace - and was caught by surprise as the ball reared up at pace, took his bat, and ballooned to Harbhajan at coverpoint.

And then India hit a purple patch - coincidentally, shortly after Ganguly recalled that he had in his ranks a bowler by the name of Harbhajan, decent sort of lad, taken a few wickets here and there. With Zaheer and Harbhajan, India's two best bowlers, finally in harness together, things began to happen. Scott Styris, replacing Astle, was completely deceived by Bajji's `doosra', stranded a good yard or two down the track, and easily stumped by Patel. The next over saw Jacob Oram pad up without offering a shot - only to learn, as Tendulkar did on day one, that the bat is given to you for a purpose.

In the space of four overs, New Zealand had lost three wickets for five runs, tumbling to 186-6 from a healthy 181-3. The lead at the time was a mere 20 runs, and India had roared right back into the game.

To put the cap on it, Zaheer off the penultimate over of the day went round the wicket, got Robbie Hart on the pad, and umpire Harper raised the finger. Hart appeared unlucky - the ball seemed to have struck too high, and would have sailed over the bails.

New Zealand ended the day at 201-7, with a slender lead of 40 runs, leaving the game nicely poised. Fleming had said, before the start, that he wanted to take a big lead, and bat India out of the game. Now, it is he who faces the risk - the pitch, unless there is more intervention by the elements, should roll out relatively easy for batting tomorrow, and if India can take out the last three wickets cheap, their batsmen go in for the second knock without a mountain to climb.

And if you follow that train of thought, then you are left with this - it is New Zealand who need to bat last, and already, on a track that hasn't showed much turn thus far, those who faced Harbhajan seemed all at sea.

The fat lady is a long, long way from being ready to sing yet.

A final thought - the Indian skipper might want to consider the Manhattan chart of the Kiwi innings. And to ask himself this - why, on what logical considerations, did he delay teaming Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh until the 58th over of the innings?

When they were finally teamed up, the two bowled 11 overs, and took three for 20 to bring India back into the game.