Vettori claimed his best-ever figures in one-day cricket

Daniel Vettori was on song as New Zealand held out for a tense final-over victory that will assure their presence in Friday's final.

Sri Lanka, on the other hand, must pray that New Zealand lose to Pakistan in the final round-robin match, otherwise the hosts will not be there.

Victorious captain Stephen Fleming took little pleasure from a pitch which helped all the bowlers but was so hard to score runs on.

"It was rubbish," he said after celebrating his 200th one-day international with a crucial win.

"One should be looking at scores of better than 150 or 160. We didn't get too many runs, but Vettori bowled very well."

Left-arm spinner Vettori took 4-14 in his full 10 overs, his best ever figures at this level.

Meanwhile, wicket-keeper McCullum also deserves mention. He grabbed his highest score ever at this level, 47 not out, with some lusty blows at the end of the end of the Black Caps' innings.

Restricted

Sri Lanka won the toss and having restricted the Kiwis to 156 they must have fancied their chances.

Certainly at 43-1 with present skipper Marvan Atapattu and his predecessor Sanath Jayasuriya going well everything looked rosy.

TRIANGULAR SERIES TABLE New Zealand P3 W2 L1 BP1 Pts12 RR0.510 Sri Lanka P4 W2 L2 BP0 Pts11 RR-0.332 Pakistan P3 W1 L2 BP1 Pts7 RR-0.041

But once Daryl Tuffey had Jayasuriya caught behind, Vettori came on to produce his killer spell and there were important strikes from the back-up bowlers.

The ball moved off the pitch alarmingly throughout but in the final battle of nerves Mahela Jayawardene looked like he might just take his team home.

However he was last man out off the first ball of the last over, when an attempted reverse sweep off Scott Styris went horribly wrong. His 38 was easily the best score in Sri Lanka's innings.

Earlier, McCullum hit three sixes and two fours in an innings that came up off just 63 balls.

The new ball had been extremely difficult to score runs off, the 16 overs bowled by Chaminda Vaas and Prabath Nissanka costing just 30 runs.

Stephen Fleming laboured to 16 off 58 balls before falling lbw to Muttiah Muralitharan.

And the celebrated off-spinner followed up by dismissing Styris, the second highest scorer in the innnings with 29.

Jayasuriya also took two wickets though he was the most expensive Sri Lankan bowler.

New Zealand: Stephen Fleming (captain), Chris Nevan, Lou Vincent, Scott Styris, Chris Cairns, Chris Harris, Brendon McCullum, Andre Adams, Daniel Vettori, Daryl Tuffey, Kyle Mills.

Sri Lanka: Marvan Atapattu (captain), Romesh Kaluwitharana, Sanath Jayasuriya, Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Kumar Dharmasena, Chaminda Vaas, Kaushal Lokuarachchi, Prabath Nissanka, Muttiah Muralitharan