Close New Zealand 71 for 2 (Richardson 25*, Fleming 16*) are 487 runs behind Australia
Scorecard

A spectacular Hobart thunderstorm, which swept across the ground at around 3pm, turned the Bellerive Oval into a boating lake. That, and an untimely late shower just as the umpires were about to inspect, restricted the day's entertainment to 35 overs.

In that time New Zealand nibbled a 71-run slice out of Australia's huge total, scoring cautiously at first against the metronomic Glenn McGrath (11-6-11-0) and the meteoric Jason Gillespie (11-5-18-1). It took Matthew Bell 33 balls to conjure up a run against them, and he had made only 4, with his curious splay-footed crabby technique, when he under-edged a sweep against Shane Warne's second ball and deflected it via his body to Adam Gilchrist (11 for 1).

The only other wicket to fall was Mathew Sinclair, whose impressive record against other countries doesn't yet extend to his native Australia (he was born up north in Crocodile Dundee territory). He nearly fell first ball, squeezing one from Warne dangerously close to Steve Waugh at leg slip – the resultant runs took Sinclair past 1000, in his 15th Test – and three balls later Waugh dived but couldn't quite hold on to a similar snick.

Sinclair, whose occasionally jerky technique is reminiscent of that old Kiwi favourite Andrew Jones, fell to the first ball after lunch. Jason Gillespie pitched one in the perfect spot, it slanted in past Sinclair's firm-footed push, and crashed into the stumps (53 for 2).

Stephen Fleming galloped onto the pitch, and soon broke Gillespie's stranglehold with a well-timed flip off the pads to the midwicket boundary. With the clouds looming Fleming and fellow left-hander Mark Richardson survived without further alarms. The well-organised Richardson, one of that rare breed with a triple-century to his name (in a tour match in Zimbabwe in September 2000), dug in for the long haul, although he was alert enough to crack Warne for fours when he lobbed down a full-toss and a juicy long-hop in his fifth over.

All the rain means that the odds have tilted strongly in favour of a draw, especially as Steve Waugh is less likely to be charitable after the New Zealanders gave him such a scare from a similar position in the first Test at Brisbane. The pitch is still playing well, although McGrath and Gillespie extracted some sideways movement early on. New Zealand have only lost two wickets so far – 18 more, with rain in the air, might even be beyond this awesome Aussie attack.

Teams
Australia 1 Justin Langer, 2 Matthew Hayden, 3 Ricky Ponting, 4 Mark Waugh, 5 Steve Waugh (capt), 6 Damien Martyn, 7 Adam Gilchrist (wk), 8 Shane Warne, 9 Brett Lee, 10 Jason Gillespie, 11 Glenn McGrath.

New Zealand 1 Mark Richardson, 2 Matthew Bell, 3 Mathew Sinclair, 4 Stephen Fleming (capt), 5 Nathan Astle, 6 Craig McMillan, 7 Adam Parore (wk), 8 Chris Cairns, 9 Daniel Vettori, 10 Daryl Tuffey, 11 Shane Bond.

Steven Lynch is database director of Wisden.com. Blow by Blow How the day unfolded: the long version

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