DUNEDIN: Luke Ronchi and Grant Elliott’s world-record partnership in Dunedin brought understandable satisfaction for New Zealand batting coach Craig McMillan.

But McMillan said on Saturday the batting higher up in the order is an area for improvement in the last two matches of the one-day cricket series against Sri Lanka.

On Sunday, the teams return to University Oval, where Ronchi (170) and Elliott (104) smashed an unbeaten stand of 267, the highest for the sixth wicket in ODI history.

The pair came together on Friday with New Zealand struggling at the end of the 20th over and their remarkable rescue effort took the score to 360-5 and set the platform for a 108-run victory.

McMillan said it’s nice to be winning matches despite not playing the perfect game, but the Black Caps know there are aspects they can tidy up with both bat and ball.

“If you’re five for 90, you’ve lost a few too many wickets at the start,” he said. “We need to reassess that and try not to put ourselves in that sort of a hole, which puts pressure on the middle to lower order.”

While the ball did move around in the first 20 overs, the Black Caps had been banking on getting through that tough period with the lost of only a couple of wickets.