KEY POINTS:
John Bracewell is backing his under-fire bowling attack to bounce back from their drubbing at the hands of Sri Lanka when the second one-day international starts tomorrow.
An inexperienced and disorganised New Zealand pace attack was flayed all around Napier's McLean Park on Thursday as Sri Lanka made no race of chasing down 286, and taking a 1-nil lead in the five-match series.
Michael Mason bled an anxious 10 runs an over. Mark Gillespie, Andre Adams and James Franklin gave up about seven an over in what was one of New Zealand's worst ODI bowling performances in recent memory.
To make matters worse, Gillespie overstepped on seven occasions and the combined attack gave up a total of 16 no-balls and wides - the sort of help the rampaging Sri Lankans readily accepted but clearly didn't need.
Bracewell said the attack had discussed the McLean Park meltdown and devised plans for making sure it didn't recur at Queenstown, although he accepted nothing was guaranteed.
"They were pretty positive by the time we left the dressing room [at Napier] in terms of what they were going to do about the next game," he said. "The proof will be in the pudding - to see if they improve or go backwards."
Bracewell put the wayward display mainly down to over-exuberance, in that he believed the pace bowlers had been impressed with the speeds they were clocking in the Twenty20 match on Boxing Day and were hoping to continue in a similar vein at Napier.
He also believed it was the reason behind the 11 no-balls delivered.
"The inexperience showed," he conceded. "A couple of young bowlers who can bowl reasonably fast got a bit red-eye with the radar. They were trying to run in a little too hard and bowl a little too fast in an effort to get wickets, rather than trying to control the game through good accurate, back-of-the-length bowling."
But Bracewell refused to come down too hard on his scatter-gun attack, insisting young bowlers needed to have a chance to absorb harsh lessons and gain in experience if they were going to have a long-term future.
Gillespie, in particularly, had New Zealand pulses racing on Boxing Day when he was touching 145km/h, forcing batsmen to jump around on the crease and confirming himself as the second quickest paceman in the country.
"If we want a pace attack, then we have to be prepared to give them some sort of leeway," Bracewell said.
"I don't want to knock their confidence. If you can find quick bowlers who can hit the back-of-a-length, then they're going to be handy for you in the long run; much more useful rather than medium pacers we normally produce."
New Zealand could take more positives out of their batting effort on Thursday, but were still frustrated they couldn't push on from a position of strength at 222 for two in the 38th over, to post a total in excess of 320.
Although the move to use Daniel Vettori at No 5 and the Marshall twins at No 7 and 8 was unsuccessful, New Zealand received plenty of value from Ross Taylor's maiden ODI century and from Nathan Astle's 83 off 87 balls.
Astle, who was in doubt for the first ODI because of a damaged hand, is again under an injury cloud on the eve of tomorrow's game, this time after suffering deep bruising when taking a succession of deliveries on the inside of his thigh.
Astle's Canterbury teammate and brother-in-law, Craig McMillan, has been called in to the team as cover.
McMillan, who wasn't offered a NZ Cricket contract this season, played the most recent of his 175 one-dayers in last summer's Chappell-Hadlee Series but has wooed the selectors this season, averaging 60 in the four-day State Championship.
Second One-Dayer
New Zealand v Sri Lanka, Queenstown, tomorrow from 10.30am (Live on Sky Sport 1)
New Zealand: Daniel Vettori (c), Andre Adams, Nathan Astle, Peter Fulton, Mark Gillespie, Hamish Marshall, James Marshall, Michael Mason, Brendon McCullum, Jeetan Patel, Ross Taylor, Craig McMillan.
Sri Lanka: Mahela Jayawardene (c), Marvan Atapattu, Malinga Bandara, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Dilhara Fernando, Sanath Jayasuriya, Chamara Kapugedera, Farveez Maharoof, Lasith Malinga, Muttiah Muralitharan, Ruchira Perera, Kumar Sangakkara, Chamara Silva, Upal Tharanga, Chaminda Vaas.
