That's all we have for you from this game. Please do click through to read Karthik Krishnaswamy's report and this stats piece from Shiva Jayaraman on MS Dhoni completing 9000 runs in ODIs. And then join us again on Wednesday for the fourth game of the series. Goodnight.

Virat Kohli is Man of the Match. "Bit of luck went my way, I feel sorry for Ross, it's never easy to drop a catch and the batsman carries through. I've done that, and Brendon got 300 in Wellington. We may have given a bit too much to New Zealand, but we took it as an opportunity to chase them down, because we know we are a good chasing team. Good to have MS up the order, and Manish gave me confidence as well when he came in. Shows the confidence he has, he was run-out in the last game, but he came here and did his job. Some of the boundaries he hit early on helped me relax. We fed off each other, I fed off MS as well. And it wasn't the easiest pitch. Some balls were stopping on us. In the past I have tried to play out of my skin, getting overexcited, but I've realised if I can time the ball, and hit the gaps and run hard, I can still get runs. If a bowler can hit the right areas a be good, a batsman can be good playing proper shots. Me and MS had a chat, he took on the spinner, even mistimed hits go over the crowd. I know teams want to get me out immediately, so I take my time, go with the flow and then attack at the end. For that you need to play percentage cricket and I know I can play good cricketing shots and still get runs"

"I think we would have done better in the last game, but what's important is coming back and doing well in the next one and I felt it was a very good game for us initially, I thought it would be a high-scoring game, but the bowlers did well in the middle overs to restrict them to 280," MS Dhoni says, "The surprise package has been Kedar, he has always given us wickets in the middle overs, and that's when you can restrict the opposition. But we have to finish better with the ball, the last five, six, seven overs. I have no clue how he gets wickets. It's important to have one in the top five to bowl a few, especially with left-handers in the opposition with him being an offspinner. I have batted lower down for a long time, I think 200 innings down the order. To some extent I am losing an ability to freely rotate in the middle, so I have decided to bat up and let the others finish. But I know I should still look for the big shots. Once you get 15-20 runs, you get into the groove. There were points in the middle where I had to pull myself from playing big shots, and batting with Virat helps because we know we can get boundaries, and get those quick singles and doubles. Right from the start, he is somebody who always wanted to improve to win games for India. He is somebody who has learnt a lot and he is somebody who knows his strengths really well. It's very difficult to say what the top level is in cricket, but Kohli has done India proud"

"Obviously frustrating to lose those wickets in the middle in a clump, we were probably looking at a bit more at that stage. But the lower-order performed really well. Neesham and Henry were outstanding," Kane Williamson says, "But I suppose if you don't dismiss this man [Kohli] in a chase.. You always want more on the board, we thought at the halfway stage at 160 for 3, we were good. But to lose those wickets and end up on 280, we were pleased. Maybe we wanted more, but with early wickets we could have made it harder. You have to dismiss them, Kohli and Dhoni put on 150 and took the game away. Boys tried hard, tried a lot with the ball. [Taylor's drop] It's part of the game, unfortunately, you want to catch them all, doesn't always happen"

Mayur Kulkarni: "Presentation felt like India have 2 captains talking. "

Varun Gande: "The 22 in Boult's over reminded me of Malinga's 24 in the CB series in 2012, was it?...similar pressure situation, taking the chase almost to the last over. Outstanding stuff."

9.20 pm Virat Kohli leads the players off and has he does so he sees an entire ground, filled with people, standing up for him. A target of 286 is large. It could have been considerably larger had Ross Taylor taken a catch in the fifth over of the chase to dismiss Kohli for 6. In the end, Kohli finished not out on 154. Both men had wry smiles on their faces as they shook hands.

There was MS Dhoni as well, promoting himself to No. 4 and making a very fluent half-century. He looks good up the order, has the time to work the ball for singles and twos and once he feels set, he peppers the boundaries.

New Zealand couldn't do much with the ball with dew around, but they'd definitely rue their batting collapse in the middle overs when they gifted wickets away to part-timer Kedar Jadhav. That is where they conceded the series lead. Stay tuned for the presentation

"It was a good partnership, Virat played really well and when you have a player of his calibre with 80 runs to chase, when I came in, it's just important to stay there from my perspective," Pandey says. "Played with him a lot, he anchors the innings."

Terry: "Like Healy was soon forgotten after Gilchrist... Tendulkar will not be missed with Kohli doing the it the way he's doing it right now!!" That may be going a bit too far, but hey, we love people stirring up debates here on feedback. And this could become the mother of them all.

Pradeep: "Which one would hurt more? Drops rohit on 4 and he makes 264 ? Or Drops Kohli on 6 and he makes 154? Pity Perera and Taylor ;)"

NZ bring all their fielders up. Pandey on strike

Lakpj: "hard to believe that Monish and Kohli played in the same u-19 back in 2008. But look now where those two are in-terms of their international career. Kohli is a modern great where as Pandey is just starting his career. "

Anurag: "@Kaey Those days are long gone!! Kohli is measuring himself against none less than Novak Djokovic!! Those are the standards he's bringing to the game, never mind competing against cricketers from other nations!!"