Kanpur, Nov 29: He has always been different from the rest and India's new head coach Rahul Dravid proved it once again by giving Green Park's groundstaff, led by Shiv Kumar, Rs 35,000 for preparing a sporting pitch for the first Test against New Zealand.

The Indian-born Ajaz Patel and Rachin Ravindra showed remarkable resilience under fading light and on a deteriorating track to defy India's famous spinners and eke out a thrilling draw for New Zealand after an engrossing fifth and final day of the opening Test here on Monday.

"We would like to make an official announcement. Mr Rahul Dravid has paid Rs 35,000 personally to our groundsmen," the Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association (UPCA) announced in the press box after the game.

During his time, Dravid was known to play the game fair and square and things haven't changed one bit even after so many years. The tip was a token of appreciation for not dishing out an under-prepared track where the divot would explode and the match would end inside three days.

It was a proper pitch where batters who have applied themselves got runs, such as Shreyas Iyer, Shubman Gill, Tom Latham and Will Young, while pacers Tim Southee and Kyle Jamieson tormented India's top-order and the home team tweakers got 17 wickets.

Dravid's appreciation means that the template going forward would be sporting wickets with a bit of everything rather than something diabolical.

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New Delhi (PTI): A Delhi court has sentenced two CBI officers to three months' imprisonment for assaulting and trespassing into the residence of an Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer during a raid over two decades ago.

Judicial Magistrate Shashank Nandan Bhatt was hearing the arguments on the sentence against the convicted retired police officer V K Pandey and Ramneesh, who was serving as a superintendent of police when the raid was conducted in 2000.

Ramneesh is at present a joint director at the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The court also fined Rs 50,000 each to both the accused.

Both were accused under IPC sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 427 (mischief) and 448 (criminal trespass) in a complaint filed by IRS officer Ashok Kumar Aggarwal.

The case pertained to an incident on October 19, 2000, when a CBI team carried out a search and arrest operation at Aggarwal's residence in Paschim Vihar.

Aggarwal alleged that the officials forcibly entered his house in the early hours, assaulted him and violated legal procedures during the arrest.