New Zealand can take great heart from this morning's Super Over loss to Sri Lanka, in the first match of the Twenty20 World Cup's Super 8s stage.

From a seemingly hopeless position, the Black Caps took the tournament hosts to the brink of defeat.

Their eventual five-run Super Over loss will sting, but the Black Caps need to quickly get over that and focus on the way they made a game of it, here at Pallekele.

Tim Southee bowled heroically at the end of Sri Lanka's innings.

Chasing 175 to win, the hosts could only muster 174 for six, with the match going into an eliminator over after batsman Lahiru Thirimanne was eventually given run out trying to steal a leg bye which would have won his team the match.

With the scores level, he missed a Southee delivery which struck his body and rebounded towards James Franklin at point.

Thirimanne and partner Angelo Mathews took off, while Franklin threw the ball to the non-striker's end where captain Ross Taylor was waiting.

Franklin's throw was perfect, but Taylor somehow dropped it with Thirimanne miles short.

A bail had been dislodged, though, and the task for television umpire Steve Davis was to decide whether the ball had knocked it off or Taylor.

During an interminable delay, which included the appearance and the ground of the West Indies and England, who were due to play afterwards, replay after replay seemed inconclusive.

But Davis eventually saw enough to convince him the ball had come from Taylor and onto the stumps.

The players had long since shaken hands and headed towards the boundary, but now they had to come back for one over a side.

Sri Lanka went first, having been the chasing team. Southee was again entrusted with the ball and bowled a pretty good over.

Thirteen, for the loss of run out-captain Mahela Jayaardene, was all they could muster.

Martin Guptill and Brendon McCullum strode out in search of the 14. Guptill came within a few centimetres of maybe winning the game when, with two balls remaining and eight runs required. He skied Lasith Malinga to long off.

It looked like it might be six, but instead landed safely in Tillakatne Dilshan's grasp.

Going back to the start, New Zealand would have taken 174, if they'd been offered it when Taylor won the toss and decided to bat.

But, given how well they played for the bulk of the innings, they might also have finished it feeling slightly disappointed.

A score up around 190 had looked in the offing, at 149 for three at the end of the 17^th over. Instead of kicking on, though, the Black Caps' innings faltered at that point, as four wickets fell in the remaining three overs.

Taylor went for 23, off 16 balls, while Jacob Oram (6), Nathan McCullum (3) and Kane Williamson (4) never really got underway.

The bulk of New Zealand's scoring had come from their openers, Guptill and Rob Nicol.

Guptill, restored to the side after missing the loss to Pakistan with a hamstring strain, was the dominant partner in an opening stand of 57.

His 38 came from 30 balls and he looked good, before casually hitting debutant Akila Dananjaya's third ball in international Twenty20 cricket down Thisara Perea's throat at long off.

Nicol started to branch out at that point, with new man Brendon McCullum dancing down and whacking Sri Lanka's spinners back over their heads, and New Zealand rattled along to 99 for one after 12 overs.

McCullum then gave Perera another catch, this time on the square leg fence, having made 25 in 16 balls.

Nicol and Taylor had advanced the total to 137, when the former was out to Dananjaya. His 58, from 40 balls, was one of his better innings' for New Zealand.

He looked very composed, hit the ball hard into his favoured midwicket region when he could, but otherwise worked the ball around very effectively.

Overall it had been a very good, but not outstanding batting effort from the team.

The encouraging signs were that people, by and large, performed their individual roles well and batted in the spots that made sense.

You could perhaps quibble about Williamson coming out for the final seven balls of the innings, ahead of more-noted hitters like Daniel Vettori, Southee and Kyle Mills. But it was a minor issue.

What was an immediate and big problem, was the way Sri Lanka started their reply.

The first over, bowled by Nathan McCullum, went for 17 and the home side didn't really look back, racing to 80 in 7.1 overs, before Oram had Jayawardene caught at fine leg for 44.

The scoring rate didn't slow when Kumar Sangakkara came out to join Dilshan and the hundred was reached with the last ball of the tenth over.

There was nothing especially bad about the bowling. The wicket was simply a belter and Sri Lanka's batsmen in magnificent touch.

Like New Zealand's had, though, the last five overs of their innings failed to build on the fine work of the first 15.

Franklin got the Black Caps back into the match, with some useful wicket-to-wicket bowling, while Southee again showed his prowess as a death bowler to force the Super Over.