Cricket: Williamson backs NZ to bounce back

Kane Williamson has backed his team to bounce back against Pakistan in Sharjah tonight. Photo / Getty

New Zealand cricket captain Kane Williamson says his team have to quickly put lessons learned to good use as they attempt to bounce back against Pakistan in Sharjah tonight.

After going behind early in both the test and Twenty20 series and finishing well to square both in the United Emirates, Williamson is backing his team to again respond after losing the first ODI match in Dubai on Tuesday.

"It's been a little bit of theme throughout the series so it's important that we do bounce back," Williamson said.

"We just need to learn a little bit from previous performances, which we have done in the past. Hopefully we can do that again.

"We are on a different surface. If we can improve a little bit on the last performance, it should hold us in good stead."

Williamson confirmed Martin Guptill (hamstring) and Corey Anderson (head knock) would both be assessed before the match.

"We played the majority of the game very well," Williamson said of this week's defeat.

"We just weren't able to take wickets towards the end of the innings which I think would have put the result in our favour. The Pakistani middle order played very well."

Sharjah is the venue of New Zealand's third-test victory, but Williamson said the Black Caps can't take too much from that.

"That was a great victory but the personnel are very different now," he said.