Positivism was the message England captain Nasser Hussain was throwing out after his side's record one-day loss to New Zealand at WestpacTrust Stadium in Wellington.

Despite the 155-run margin Hussain said he firmly believes he has the players to beat New Zealand.

"Otherwise I wouldn't be here," he said.

But he did acknowledge that the performance yesterday had not been good enough.

"Today was a poor performance, there is no excuse for it all the way through. It was not a 90 all out wicket and it is not a 240 wicket, it is somewhere between those two.

"Maybe if we kept them down to 180, and fielded a little better, and put in the energy that New Zealand put in we might have batted a bit more sensibly. But all departments were not good enough today," he said.

While the pitch had done a bit all day, New Zealand's bowlers had put the ball in the right areas more often than the England attack, their fielders took better catches than England. And if things had been done better, New Zealand could have been 30/4.

Hussain did not think some marginal umpiring decisions had impacted on the side.

"We could have had 15 decisions go for us today and we'd have lost," he said.

Hussain - we'll pick ourselves up Photo Reuters

The formula was obvious, after all, as Hussain told the press conference, two games ago the English media had been saying England were a good side.

The team did not go from being a good side to a bad one in two games, he said.

"One thing that we have done in the last few years is we have picked ourselves up, we will have a chat and try to pick ourselves up.

"It is part and parcel of being an England cricketer. You do have days like this and you have to pick yourself up. I firmly we have the ability in that room to beat New Zealand otherwise I wouldn't be here and we showed that for large parts of the game the other day.

"We were a better side the other day, today we weren't and therefore I have to remind them of that and therefore ask them to be honest with me and ask them why we were all so flat and to make sure it doesn't happen again.

"You have to focus in and do our job and not enough of us did that today," he said.

Hussain also explained the replacement of wicket-keeper James Foster by Marcus Trescothick. It had been to give Foster a break.

"James Foster has been tired the last two or three days and he has talked to a couple of coaches about it.

"He's a young lad who's come out of University where he played 15 games in a year and now he's playing 50 games in a year so he was feeling it a little bit so we rested him today in the hope he'll have fresh legs later on in the series, whether it be in the one-dayers or test matches or whatever," he said.

"Owais Shah came in because he's a good young prospect and we'll readdress the side when we look at conditions in Napier."

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