Rival captains Stephen Fleming and Sourav Ganguly were scathing about the Eden Park "drop-in" pitch for the first one-day international between New Zealand and India on Thursday.

New Zealand won the tense, low-scoring affair by three wickets after being set 109 to win, but neither skipper was happy with the pitch, which was transplanted three weeks ago and tended to balloon the ball off the surface.

"It certainly fooled me," Fleming said. "I thought it was going to be a good wicket and that's why I bowled first. It was very testing and a little two-paced and difficult to bat on.

"We are not asking for these types of wickets. We want to see quality cricket and you get quality cricket from good pitches."

Ganguly said the type of wicket India had faced in the two lost Tests and now the ODI would turn off the public.

Ganguly, whose side scored just 108 from 32.5 overs, said, "I expected something better from today's wicket. It doesn't help the batsmen from either side and it doesn't help cricket.

"It's not just the batsmen it's bad for. The bowlers are getting false returns."

Fleming said the seamer's dream wickets for the Wellington and Hamilton Tests, both won by New Zealand, had made the batsmen nervous.

The Kiwi skipper said, "You've got to look at the frame of mind of the batsmen who have been playing over the last couple of weeks.

"There probably is a fair bit of negativity and often that can be just as damaging, as a wicket that is seaming and is in favour of the bowlers.

"It does seem with the nature of dismissals today that the wicket was at fault, but the negativity is becoming a trend and trends are often hard to break."

Fleming said it seemed as if India's batsmen were nervous. "They [Indian batsmen] are very talented players and play a lot with their hands, which has often been their downfall overseas and has been highlighted this time and with the modes of dismissals.

"They are one performance away from being on song, but we've just got to keep them down and our bowlers are determined to do that."

Man of the match Jacob Oram, who took five wickets and later played the sheet-anchor role to lead his team to victory, said, "Today stands out for me. I've never had five wickets in a one-dayer before so that sets it apart.

With the batting I took a lot of heart from Hamilton. It wasn't pretty out there, but above all it was the fact I wanted to stay there."

Ganguly lamented blowing the chance to win the match when India had New Zealand on the ropes at 52 for six.

"We had chances. Jacob Oram was very close to getting out to Kumble," Ganguly said, referring to an over of leg-before appeals that were turned down.