'We didn't get the partnerships we needed' - Fleming

The glued-together pitch came in for praise from both Stephen Fleming, the New Zealand captain, and Mahela Jayawardene, the Sri Lankan captain after Friday's game at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai. "There was some movement early on but it settled down pretty quickly and held together well till the end. So I guess in terms of the experiment with the glue it worked," said Fleming, after his side went down by seven wickets. "It held pretty well," said Jayawardene. "Early on it skidded through a bit more. Towards the end it did spin, but it wasn't nasty turn. The ball wasn't jumping and it wasn't dangerous. As long as you can play spin properly it was much easier to bat on."

Fleming conceded that his team was well short of a competitive total when they ended on just 165. "We were probably 80 to a 100 runs short of where we needed to be. There was a bit of sideways movement early on with the glue in the pitch, but certainly not enough to suggest that we should've been bowled out for 160," he said. "We didn't get the partnerships we needed, and our top score came from Vettori low down in the order, and that's not good enough."

After Chaminda Vaas and Lasith Malinga had prised out early wickets Muttiah Muralitharan and Sanath Jayasuriya accounted for 6 wickets between them at a cost of only 49 runs. "He [Murali] is arguably the best bowler in both forms of the game. He proved that he can do it in any conditions," said Fleming. "If their fast bowlers get wickets early on it places a lot of pressure on any team's middle order. If Chaminda Vaas and the other fast bowlers do well early on Murali's going to pick up three or four wickets regularly and be a handful."

Jayawardene too pointed to his spinners as the key architects of the win. "Our guys bowled very well early on. We started shakily but came back strongly, picking up wickets and putting a lot of pressure on them," he said. "We thought it was the kind of wicket where we'd be chasing 220-230 but Murali and Sanath bowled really well together and we managed to keep them down to a very decent score."

Fleming felt that there was nothing drastically wrong with the manner in which his batsmen were approaching their cricket, and that it was only a matter of time before things worked out. "There are some good players in this side, but they're finding their way back into international cricket at the moment," he said. "They need some overs under their belt and till that happens we are going to be stop start. Starting with the openers we need to get some partnerships going."

With no single team dominating the tournament, there could well be a situation where more than one is tied on the same number of points and wins. If this happens the net run rates could be crucial and Jayawardene was well aware of this. "We got a message in the 25th over and Upul [Tharanga] and myself tried to up the scoring rate," he explained. But we were both set batsmen and got out and this meant that we took perhaps three-four overs more than we should have to reach the target. But in the end our net run rate should be in a decent situation after today's win. But if we can play well in Ahmedabad and beat South Africa we won't have to think about net run rates that much."

The man who can proverbially turn the ball even on glass, Muralitharan, was the Man of the Match, and his inimitable fashion, placed very little importance on the wicket. "It held together well," he said. "It didn't spin as much as it did when we played against the West Indies. So it's a better wicket. But spin or pace you have to bowl well and that is the key."