Man of the match in the fourth game of the Coca Cola Cup, Russel Arnold not only guided his team to victory but also returned to form, which has eluded him in the recent past. After the game, in an exclusive interview with CricInfo, Arnold reflecting on his knock said, "I have been having a rough time since lately. It's been a great feeling to return to form after that rough time."

Arnold made two low scores in the first two games of the triangular series and as a result Sri Lanka's middle order too collapsed. Sri Lanka were in trouble at 27 for four but two crucial partnerships with Marvan Atapattu for the fifth wicket and Suresh Perera for the sixth enabled Sri Lanka to beat the Black Caps convincingly by five wickets. "It was not so good when I went to bat, but with Marvan around we always had our hopes," said Arnold.

"Our plan was to just pick up the singles and twos. We didn't look at the scoreboard but just kept on batting. We knew we had a chance to win with Suresh, Vaas and Kumar to come. It was unfortunate that Marvan got out," reflected Arnold who ended up with an unbeaten 91.

After the 110-run partnership with Atapattu ended, Arnold put on a 103-run stand for the 6th wicket with Perera who played an entertaining innings and ended with an unbeaten 56 off just 51 balls. "Suresh batted really well. He not only hung around, he also made a run a ball. That made things easier. Actually I thought of finishing things in the 50th over, but we finished it in the 49th."

Sri Lankan captain Sanath Jayasuriya was delighted with finishing all the matches on a victorious note; "I am really happy. Not only did we win the match, most of the batsmen returned to form as well. Now it's just Mahela" said the Sri Lankan captain.

"When I lost the toss, we were planning to restrict them to 220 but they got past 230" said Jayasuriya who gave just 14 overs for his fast bowlers. "The wicket was taking turn. The Kiwis are not the best players of spin bowling. More importantly they had got off to a flier scoring 83 runs in the first 15 overs."

New Zealand stand-in captain, Craig McMillan admitted after the match that the partnership between Arnold and Atapattu took the game away from them, "I thought we batted well to get 236 and bowled well to get four quick wickets but Marvan and Arnold played brilliantly to take the game away from us."

"We've been in situations like that on previous occasions but have not gone about the way these guys went about. It was interesting to watch and they showed that things can be turned around even after a bad start. Even when we got four quick wickets we desperately wanted to get either Atapattu or Arnold. But it just didn't happen," said McMillan.

New Zealand made a dream start by dismissing the dangerous Sanath Jayasuriya, Avishka Gunawardene, and Romesh Kaluwitharana cheaply. They also claimed the wicket of Mahela Jayawardene early but from there on things just didn't go right for the Kiwis.

"We probably had the better of the game in the first three quarters. But things slipped away from us in the last quarter. We also probably weren't tidy in certain areas that we've been tidy in previous games. McMillan felt certain fielding lapses were too costly but he had an excuse as well. "I thought the fielding was not up to expectations. But to be honest it was pretty dark out there and the boys had trouble seeing the ball."

© CricInfo