Stephen Fleming: 'We're so close to having a good tour' © Getty Images Enlarge

Stephen Fleming has expressed his concern for New Zealand's chances in the forthcoming NatWest Series, saying his bowlers lack the penetration to bowl teams out and restrict the runs.

New Zealand crashed to a 3-0 loss in the recent Test series, and came unstuck in their first warm-up limited-overs match against Derbyshire. A host of injuries have not helped matters, and Fleming was not upbeat about the bowling situation: "You do need variation through the middle, and to take wickets through the middle, otherwise teams score 250-300 quite regularly."

He added, "Going into the tri-series, one of my concerns is the ability to take wickets, that's the best way to hold a run rate. Our bowling's still flat, it lacks penetration on flat wickets."

The New Zealander's fielding against Derbyshire was suspect as well, with Fleming himself dropping Hassan Adnan before he went on to win the game for Derbyshire. "That gave them a platform, I dropped a catch and he got a hundred which doesn't help. I hate it ... you want to do well and get on the winning side."

He added: "They're only little things, we're so close to having a good tour, but that's just enough to be getting hurt. We've got to be careful we don't get too dejected, there were some good things and it was our first hitout one-day wise, but we still should knock over county sides."

New Zealand face Essex in a day-night game at Chelmsford today, and are boosted by the return of Chris Cairns, who was rested for the game at Derby. Daniel Vettori, meanwhile, has been bowling in the nets and is slowly recovering from his injured hamstring. He has targeted the next warm-up match, against Northamptonshire this Sunday.