Cricket: Sri Lanka shrug their shoulders and get on with the job

Sri Lanka have vowed to focus on exploring New Zealand's untried batting line-up rather than wasting any energy on contesting the series format.

The tourists will start the series in Queenstown today trailing by one game, after administrators deemed the upcoming four one-dayers a continuation of the series abandoned last year.

New Zealand were leading 1-nil when news of the Boxing Day tsunami broke, forcing the Sri Lankans to rush back home to help with the emergency.

Sri Lankan coach Tom Moody yesterday reasoned that the situation was a one-off and not worth pursuing despite the strangeness of what was effectively a year-long series.

"Where do you start, what do you say?" he said yesterday when asked about being one game down.

"It's a unique situation forced by a tragic situation, but we're just focusing purely on coming out on top in these four games.

"Hopefully that will put us in a good series position, given we've already dropped one of the five."

Moody, who confirmed that an official protest about the decision had not been discussed, said his side had not been distracted by the oddity and were fully committed to beating New Zealand.

Sri Lanka had a miserable tour of India last month, losing the one-day series 6-1 and slumping to sixth place in the one-day rankings, after reaching No 2 last year.

Asked his thoughts on how Sri Lanka could upset New Zealand's penchant for chasing, Moody said selection issues and injuries had effectively done the job for him.

"I think that's already been upset by two new faces at the top of the order," he said.

"New Zealand are starting with a new balance in their batting line-up, so we've got to use that to our advantage."

Sri Lankan captain Marvan Atapattu admitted his team had been rattled by the experience in India, but said most of the team were familiar with New Zealand conditions and all were keen to turn their fortunes around during the series.

"It was concerning and alarmed all of us," he said of the Indian excursion.

"I would previously have said our strength lay in our batting but after a couple of bad experiences in India it might be the bowling at the moment. We have a nicely balanced attack with spin and pace."