KEY POINTS:
It seems ludicrously early to start talking about a one-day international in early October holding special significance for New Zealand.
Yet tonight's third and deciding ODI against Bangladesh at Chittagong does carry substantially more importance for the tourists than they might have imagined when the tour began. Losing the game - and with it the series - will put not so much a serious dampener as a thorough dunking on the early part of a lengthy international campaign.
Bangladesh's convincing win in the opening match last week was not part of the New Zealand plan, and although they won the second game on Saturday comfortably, they will still want to show lessons have been learnt, particularly among the batsmen today.
"What I've learnt is that cricket is a momentum game," senior new ball bowler Kyle Mills told the Herald last night.
"Win tomorrow, win the series will help us kick the season off to a great start. That momentum of a winning culture will follow to our next series, so it's a vitally important game on that front."
Mills reckoned there were notable advances among the bowlers and in the field in the second ODI from the first. Batting is another matter, after back-to-back efforts which lacked authority and in which several batsmen were unable to handle tricky conditions.
"Parts of our game definitely lifted but the batting was not back to the mark we know it can be," Mills said. "Two out of three was a significant shift from the first game so hopefully we can tick all three boxes and the batters get to put a big score on the board."
Mills said the batsmen had found it difficult to rotate the scoreboard against tight fielding and spinners who don't give the ball much air, bang it in flat on pitches which don't allow batsmen to play through the line with any confidence.
"It's been a combination of things; coming off a long winter, not having a practice game and coming into conditions that are foreign to some of our batters. All those things add up, but the boys should have got used to conditions and their bowlers so we know what to expect," Mills said.
The early word is the pitch at Chittagong tends to be flatter than at Mirpur, where the first two games were played last week.
It is time for the specialist batsmen to step up and not leave Jacob Oram to do a third straight repair job. His 57 and 75 not out have been the standout efforts of the first two matches.
New Zealand should win well tonight. The better the pitch the less the chance of another upset. Bangladesh may feel they squandered a glorious chance in game two.
Mills reckons he needs several games to fully find his bowling rhythm at the start of each season. He'd worked hard on his fitness in the winter, "but cricket fitness is a different matter. In the last game I definitely felt much more comfortable out there."
And if he's echoing the thoughts of his teammates, expect a further improvement tonight.
