New Zealand's one-day record is spiralling downwards with tonight's 61-run defeat by Sri Lanka in Napier the latest blow to a team, which after the amount of cricket it has played this summer, should be showing far more nous than is being witnessed.

Seldom, in recent years at least, can so many ineffectual shots have been played to relatively innocuous top order bowling as New Zealand unleashed in their Napier nadir.

Sadly, it is symptomatic of all that is acceptable through the New Zealand provincial structure at the moment and the reflection between domestic and international play has never been clearer.

At times the cricket has been clueless, on pitches which if not of the finest quality, are certainly not of the worst.

Not even the staunchest New Zealand supporter would deny Sri Lanka its win in the opening game of the National Bank series. And this was a Sri Lankan team without ace opening bowler Chamina Vaas, yet which was still confident enough in its own ability to win to leave out a batsman of the quality of Romesh Kaluwitharana.

CLEAR Black Caps captain Stephen Fleming was unable to explain the cause of the batting problems especially.

"Our one-day game is lacking a bit of confidence and it is very much a confidence game.

"That has become an issue with the loss to Zimbabwe. It's a case of just doing the simple things well. When you're in that sort of situation you can't be too expansive and the expansive way the majority of us played today is an indication that everything is not on song mentally.

"You can talk about regrouping, you can talk about doing all the jargon that we usually say but the bottom line is we've got two days to get the batting right, to continue developing the bowling and more importantly to do your job on match day. That's what it comes down to.

"You can come out with all the cliches, Tristy can talk for 15-20 minutes but the bottom line is that it is on match day that it counts and the drills we are doing, hitting the ball well in the nets, doesn't equate to anything unless it is on the scoreboard," he said.

The batting was a passing parade of indifference.

Nathan Astle was out by playing a simple edge to the wicket-keeper.

Fleming himself was trapped leg before wicket.

Mathew Sinclair launched into a drive which was too aerial and easily held in the covers.

Craig McMillan played a similar shot but to mid-off, before he had scored.

Roger Twose and Daniel Vettori were trapped leg before wicket by Mutiah Muralitharan while Adam Parore pulled a ball down the throat of the man waiting for such a shot at backward square leg.

By that stage New Zealand was 93/7 and basically holding up the switching off of the lights at the ground with some tail-end resistance.

Sri Lanka's win was a triumph of mediocrity. Its own score of 213/8 was less than the 220-230 that skipper Sanath Jayasuriya wanted. Two relatively small stands of 47 for the second wicket between Marvan Atapattu (29) and Mahela Jayawardene (32) and 61 for the sixth wicket between Russel Arnold (50) and Kumar Dharmasena (32) were the difference between the two sides.

That, and the bowling of Eric Upashanta who took career best figures of four for 27 off eight overs and Muralitharan who took five for 30 off 7.5 overs.

By comparison, New Zealand's bowling effort, especially that of the recalled Andrew Penn, was a sign of things to come.

Too many wides, 16 of them and 12 of them to Penn, offered the Sri Lankans too many easy runs.

The bowling effort by the slow bowlers, left-arm spinner Daniel Vettori and Chris Harris, was the most encouraging of the season.

But the lack of control and discipline throughout by the others meant Sri Lanka scored far more runs than it should have.

The sixth wicket stand between Arnold and Dharmasena, was especially frustrating, although sensibly compiled largely through singles. Arnold was run out in the final over having just scored his 50 to a beautiful return over the stumps by Chris Martin.

Martin in his early overs looked very lively and bowled with good pace while James Franklin demonstrated the immense potential he brings to the side by taking one for 39 off 10.

Fleming said the poor effort on the night was not just one problem.

"It's a number of areas we didn't do right. The batters were glaringly poor tonight, the batsmanship throughout was bad, the execution in putting away some loose deliveries was our downfall.

"It's not anything to do with policy, it's just execution that was poor. The batsmanship to get you off to a good start and continue wasn't there and all through the innings we were dogged by soft dismissals," he said.

"It is one performance in a five match series and you have got to be realistic these are the best players we have in the country. While we are not happy with what has been done we will certainly work towards the next four games," he said.

The need to get back on a winning track is now down to simple economics. If New Zealand doesn't perform the public will not come out to watch. And too much effort has gone into this side for that to be allowed to happen.

© CricInfo