I kind of feel sorry for the Black Caps because anything less than winning the World Cup will be a major let down and anything less than a comprehensive series win over Sri Lanka will be some sort of disaster.

That's a slight over reaction of public expectations but it's close enough as the cricketing punter expects the Black Caps to win. Obviously though, this is the best position to be in.

Sri Lanka will pose much greater threat in these 7 ODI's than they did in the Test series. Four of their top five will likely include that Dilshan guy, Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene and skipper Angelo Mathews. Yikes.

Whereas in the Test's all their bowlers struggled to consistently put the ball in good areas, 50 over cricket will showcase their skills. They definitely have skills and the bowlers simply have to restrict as well as they can because their batsmen spread confidence throughout the side.

For the Black Caps, well it's all about the World Cup. This is about playing cricket well enough to continue to build confidence and figure a few things, but they mustn't play their full hand as these are the games that other teams will be watching.

Tim Southee and Ross Taylor have nothing to prove and their absence for a few games is all good.

Trent Boult needs to show that he can perform with the white ball because a certain Big Mitch will be keen to push Boult out of the starting line up. In fact every bowler has something small to prove - Boult needs to show that he can take early wickets, bowl tight in the middle and hit yorkers/slower balls at the death. Big Mitch and Adam Milne are competing for a spot so they just need to bowl well and Kyle Mills needs to get back in the swing of ODI cricket.

We have to keep an eye on Daniel Vettori and Nathan McCullum. The competition between these two will push each other to perform, but I'm still keen to see them play alongside each other. Why? Well Vettori and McCullum could dominate the middle overs, especially as batsmen will be keen to keep runs flowing thanks to T20 cricket. If these two can concede 4 runs an over for 10-20 overs, boom.

With the bat, Grant Elliot needs to perform to get the nation in behind him.

Besides that, I think this batting line up really need to show that they can consistently perform. I'm not sure about our batsmen chasing 300 or setting a target like 300 regularly, in fact I have a bit of a nightmare that Brendon McCullum might struggle ... based on nothing at all, I just keep having that nightmare.

It's going to be interesting to see how our key batsmen like B-Mac, Prince Kane, Luke Ronchi and Corey Anderson deal with being targeted by Sri Lanka tomorrow. The Sri Lankans will have plans but their plans won't be as ruthless as the plans of South Africa, Australia or Sri Lanka in a semi final.

7 ODI's is a lot of cricket against the same blokes and it resembles tournament cricket where everyone's watching, scheming, nutting you out. We'll get our first taste tomorrow and I suspect Sri Lanka will be keen to rectify a few things.