New Zealand cricket captain Daniel Vettori believes his team missed a ploy ot two to get one across the Australians during the recently held Chappell-Hadlee one-day series.

The gripping five-match series ended in favour of Australia, who emerged as 3-2 victors.

Last summer New Zealand led 2-0, then at 2-2 were poised to snatch the trophy in game five before rain stymied them in Brisbane; this time the wheels fell off in Auckland after a stirring victory in the series opener in Napier.

"If we reflect back on games, particularly the first game in Auckland, where we bowled so well to restrict them to 275 and then fell over at the end, I think that's the game that's really going to haunt us," the NZPA quoted Vettori, as saying.

Vettori said confidence would be taken forward to Friday's two-test series opener at the Basin Reserve in Wellington, along with encouragement looking further afield to the World Cup next ebruary.

He described the ODI series outcome as a fair result for the world No 1 against world No 4.

"I couldn't really ask for too much more from the bowling and fielding side of things, we've still got a lot of work to do with the bat," Vettori said. (ANI)