Jayasuriya and Fleming both look for improvement

Sri Lanka won the first game of the Coca-Cola Cup against New Zealand by 16 runs, but captain Sanath Jayasuriya admitted afterwards that he was not entirely happy with his team's performance, warning them that they had to play better if they are to beat India on Sunday.

"It was a good performance and we had to fight hard to win this game in the end, but I personally feel that we did not put enough runs on the board and was disappointed by the middle-order collapse," he said

"We wanted 240-245, but in the end we were lucky to get 220," he said.

Jayasuriya won the man-of-the-match award for his 80 runs, but it was an unusually cautious innings by the captain. He revealed in his CricInfo column today that the captaincy had changed his attitude to batting and today he reined himself in.

"When we lost a few wickets after a good start I knew that being the senior partner I had to stay at the wicket and play a long innings for the team," he said.

He attributed the shaky middle-order performance to some rustiness: "We have not played for two months and are just getting used to international cricket again - I hope the batsmen can come back in the next few games and play better."

Sri Lanka played an extra seamer in conditions tailor-made for the spinners, but Jayasuriya defended the team's policy: "We are trying the fast-bowling all-rounder policy out. Sometimes it may not work out, but we need some bowlers who can bat."

India represents an entirely different challenge on Sunday and Jayasuriya believes the team have to raise their game: "We haven't decided the team yet for the Indian game, but we know that it is going to be very tough and we have to play better than this."

Stephen Fleming, the New Zealand captain, didn't hide his disappointment afterwards.

"We missed an opportunity to win today after a very good effort in the field," he said

"I was pleased to have restricted them to 220. It was a very good example of how you can slow the scoring rate by taking wickets. Considering the healthy position they got themselves into, I was very happy.

"The 25 extras though, in a low-scoring game, proved to be very important."

He was unsure as to why the team had been docked one over because of a slow over rate by match referee Cammie Smith.

"That was pretty frustrating," he admitted. "We pored over the rules and there are clearly different interpretations of them."

The Black Caps started positively, despite the loss of both openers within the first seven balls. Fleming explained why: "We saw their seamers as an opportunity to get a good strike rate. We knew the spinners would be tough later on and figured that a good start would allow us to sit on the spinners.

"Unfortunately we lost one or two wickets too many in those early overs and had a lot of work to do on playing the spinners."

The Black Caps have had very little match preparation for this tournament, but Fleming refused to make excuses: "Today's performance is a line in the sand, but it's not acceptable. We will be back in the nets tomorrow and will be working hard."