Close New Zealand 197 for 4 (Fleming 71*, McMillan 51*) are 361 runs behind Australia
Scorecard

Stephen Fleming led the way for New Zealand as they reduced the arrears by 126 on a fourth day which, like the previous two, was ravaged by rain. Only 51 overs were possible at Hobart, just under half the day's ration, and there was no play at all after 3.30. The umpires pottered about as showers came and went, but eventually gave up at 6.40.

Fleming and Craig McMillan have so far put on 97 for the fifth wicket – rather surprisingly, a New Zealand record against Australia – and have repaired the damage caused by two early wickets. The bad news for anyone expecting a repeat of the final-day excitement at Brisbane is that even more rain is forecast for the fifth day here. The El Nino weather system is copping the blame.

Fleming spent almost half-an-hour marooned on 49, but eventually squeezed Shane Warne for a single to long leg to complete his 33rd Test half-century, only two of which have so far been converted into hundreds (neither of them against Australia). In all Fleming has batted for 250 minutes, and hit seven fours, most of them as languid and luscious as anything David Gower, fellow left-hander and April Fools' Day baby, ever managed. The pick of them were a rasping cover-drive off Brett Lee, and a careful caress past point off a widish one from Warne.

McMillan, meanwhile, tempered his natural aggression a little, and did well to survive a testing spell from Lee, who mixed up some testing inswinging 90mph toe-crushers with a new variant, the slower (64mph) away-looping lollipop. McMillan reached his half-century just before the final rain stoppage in strange fashion, with a five. He tipped and ran a single into the covers, where Ricky Ponting picked up and threw. The ball skidded off the wet turf and splashed to the boundary for four overthrows. McMillan also hit six fours, two of them in one Lee over.

The first wicket went down in the third over of the morning. Mark Richardson was unlucky to be given out to one from Jason Gillespie that seamed into him (76-3). It would have flattened middle stump, but he did get a faint inside-edge on the ball. The umpire, local man John Smeaton, is out in the middle for the second day after starting the game as the video-watcher. Steve Davis, the appointed umpire, hurt his knee on the second evening and has been off the field ever since.

The other casualty was Nathan Astle, who started confidently but fell to Steve Waugh's three-card-trick. When Gillespie came off Astle would have been expecting Glenn McGrath to lope in, but instead Mark Waugh was given a trundle. His second ball went straight on, flicked the edge, and flew to slip, where Warne plunged to his right to take a fine catch (100-4).

McGrath, whose face when Mark Waugh went on ahead of him was quite a picture, eventually did get a bowl. He tested McMillan with some rising deliveries, and then tied him up by coming round the wicket. By the end, though, Australia's most dangerous bowler still had only one wicket to his name in the series, although he had kept it typically tight, with figures of 18-10-22-0.

New Zealand still need 162 runs to avoid the follow-on. Today's rain has just about scuppered any chance of a Brisbane-style final-day run-chase – so it's beginning to look as if it will be 0-0 going to Perth for the final Test on Friday. New Zealand would have settled for that before the series started ...

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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