New Zealand have probably not faced a more important home One-Day International than the day-night encounter with Sri Lanka at WestpacTrust Stadium in Wellington tomorrow since the days before the 1992 World Cup.

On that occasion, New Zealand had lost a Test series with England 2-0 and was whitewashed in the one-day series held immediately afterwards.

The team, on the verge of one of the greatest occasions in New Zealand cricket history, was facing a potential disaster. There were alleged problems between captain Martin Crowe and coach Warren Lees and the future looked bleak.

But, in a situation that shows how quickly form and confidence can make a mockery of all the dire predictions, New Zealand beat co-host Australia in the first game and began a sequence of eight straight wins.

Crowe and Lees were hailed as heroes, their teamwork and innovation regarded as central to New Zealand's success in making the semi-finals and everyone was happy.

Now, since winning the ICC KnockOut in Nairobi, Kenya, New Zealand have lost five games in South Africa (with one abandoned), lost 1-2 to Zimbabwe and are now one down against Sri Lanka.

If it was a matter of life and death the situation might be called a crisis, it's not, but it is clearly a worrying decline in form, confidence and cricket intelligence.

Wellington provided the only win in the sequence of games since Nairobi and the hope in the New Zealand camp must be that it can provide the starting point for a recovery which will see New Zealand win the series and approach the Pakistan series with improved confidence.

If it doesn't then the blood-letting and ritual slaughter that is now occurring will only get worse.

The concern for New Zealand Cricket is obvious.

The increasing encroachment of rugby onto the cricket scene since the Super 12 has been exacerbated now by the successful staging of the World Sevens Series in Wellington. It has been a highly popular travel and entertainment choice for people from all over the country, and that, coupled with the start of Super 12 in the last week of February has increased the implications for cricket.

Without a winning, and attractive one-day team, New Zealand drastically reduces its chance to compete in the entertainment market.

The challenge for Stephen Fleming and it is increasingly his job, despite what all the detractors might say about him being replaced, to take charge and mould the team that he will take into the future.

All the support mechanisms in place can still not change the situation on the field of play. That is Fleming's domain and while coaches come and go, he will be the constant in the future, and as Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh have done in Australia, he will have an increasingly more important role to play.

Talk of removing Fleming from the captaincy role misses the point. He is the captain who led New Zealand to the ICC KnockOut success, not just in the final, but in the semi-final game against Pakistan.

He is the person who has overseen New Zealand's climb from the bottom of the Test and One-Day International rankings. Even if his role was under threat, there is no obvious alternative.

What his players have to do is recognise that when the side is in trouble, some hard graft is needed to get out of it.

Recognising that hard graft was required seemed to be the most elusive quality in Napier, among batsmen who should have known that need.

Sri Lanka is in a happy position going into the game.

Captain Sanath Jayasuriya knows his team can improve, despite the margin of its win on Wednesday.

He also has a trump card who impressed on his first outing in New Zealand in fast bowler Dilhara Fernando. Jayasuriya said he was delighted for a change to have a bowler of genuine pace in his side.

While Eric Upashantha created the initial breakthrough, and off-spinner Mutiah Muralitharan did the damage through the middle and lower-order, the prospect of Fernando and Nuwan Zoysa backing them up, makes Sri Lanka a formidable opponent.

It is going to take a turnaround of 1992 World Cup proportions for New Zealand to get back into this series.

The question is: Do they have the desire and application to do it?

© CricInfo