Chennai, Oct 23: India's hope of a win came to a premature end as heavy downpour forced abandonment of the opening match of the TVS Cup triangular one-day cricket tournament against New Zealand at the M A Chidambaram Stadium here tonight. Both the teams earned three points each from the day-night encounter. India take on Australia in another match under lights at Gwalior on Sunday.

This is only the fourth occasion in 70 matches between the two countries that has gone without a result.

India had won on 34 occasions and lost to New Zealand 32 times. The teams split points in the third one-dayer in Wellington in 1998-99 and at Colombo, twice, in 1997-1998 Singer Cup tri-nation tournament with Sri Lanka as the third team. Even as mopping up operations were in full swing, a second downpour sealed the fate of the match when India were struggling at 141 for three with Sachin Tendulkar (48) and Yuvraj Singh (29) at the crease, after Virender Sehwag, V V S Laxman and Rahul Dravid had returned to the pavilion.

The first suspension of the game came ten minutes before the skies actually opened out when play was halted for 16 minutes due to bad light.

The floodlights were switched on about half hour before the scheduled time (4.30 pm) but the passing clouds enveloped over the stadium and Tendulkar's appeal for bad light was upheld by the Umpires David Sheperd and A V Jayaprakash. Bureau Report