Game one against Sri Lanka, we won. Yey.

That's probably the biggest thing we can take away from the first ODI between the Black Caps and Sri Lanka as the Black Caps simply won. I love 50 over cricket because there's still plenty of time for momentum to swing, for all the skills and cricketing craft to be on display and this game was no different as both sides juggled control but the Black Caps overall performed better in all facets.

There's two ways to look at these ODI's as you can either dig way too deep about individual performances or you can take a broader look at look at how the team performs, I try to find a happy place in the middle. We need to see this Black Caps win cricket games and in seven games you would expect them to face a variety of situations and challenges, but they just need to find a way to win and they did that yesterday by doing a good enough job with bat, ball and in the field.

Both Adam Milne and Big Mitch took wickets, but also kept things pretty tight which was good. For me, Big Mitch is just a wicket taker, it's what he does and you have to allow for a few runs to be scored in pursuit of wickets. However, he bowled his 10 overs for only 36 runs, while Milne went for 37 off his 10. That's two ticks for me.

With the bat, they simply did what needed to be done. Timely knocks from Brendon McCullum and Corey Anderson showed us that guys are able to stand up when needed, because whether you like it or not batsmen will fail but as long as a few guys chip in then boom. It's going to happen and with the squad already locked in, nothing's going to be changed.

The impressive thing here is that McCullum did his business at the start, Anderson came in and rescued the innings. They were both called on, did the job and we won. Cool.

What was also cool was seeing Mahela Jayawardene swing his blade. It was clear in his innings, and B-Mac's and Anderson's that you can bowl 6 good balls and go for 20 runs, easily. These batsmen are able to hit a good delivery wherever they please because they are the best, which was especially the case for Jayawardene and B-Mac. We better get used to that.

Also, ODI cricket provides much more variety than Test cricket. Sachithra Senanayake is a gun because he offers so much more than just off spin and his wicket of Kane Williamson showed this as he spun it the other way, resulting in a mediocre catch from Jayawardene.

It's going to be interesting to see how the Black Caps deal with the variety, both in terms of the bowling - all of Sri Lanka's bowlers do something different, but also with the bat as the Sri Lankan top 5 is freaky. You're not going to steam roll through them too often and they all bat differently, I mean Jayawardene was smacking lofted drives over cover with a flick of his wrists! 

You can bet your last 10 cents that every major cricket team is watching the Black Caps, trying to find weakness and note patterns. After game one, here's what I would be watching, noting...

• How to stop Brendon McCullum, it looks like he's going to open the innings so we've got to pick him up early or at least strangle him.
• Not silly singles, they're good in the field.
• We can't let Nathan McCullum breeze through his 10 overs for less than 40 runs.
• See out the new ball, then pick on Corey Anderson.
• Get in! You're going to struggle with seam, swing or bounce early on so just knuckle down.
• Two early wickets is all it takes to get Tom Latham and Grant Elliot to the crease.
• Fire up that McClenaghan guy, go after him.

I just love cricket.