England's fielding not good enough - Hussain

Nasser Hussain admitted England were let down by their fielding after their 31-run defeat at the hands of Sri Lanka under the SCG floodlights.

Steve Harmison missed two catches as Sri Lanka reached 284 for seven in their 50 overs, and England again failed to capitalise on a strong start to their reply from Marcus Trescothick and Nick Knight.

"The fielding has to improve by about 600%," said the England captain. "It's the one area that's beyond belief at the moment. It's just not good enough, dropped catches, and we have to improve on it.

"The side we had six months ago was a different side to the one we have now. The likes of Craig White, Andrew Flintoff, Ashley Giles and Michael Vaughan are very good fielders and they are not in the side at the moment.

"People in the side are carrying little niggles from the amount of cricket which means we are losing momentum in the field. We just need our full side to get fit and get ready for some important cricket ahead.

"It was deja vu apart from it was a slightly more difficult chase than Hobart," Hussain added. "It's very easy to look at the card and see the top two got runs again and the middle order didn't.

"But it's very hard batting at four, five and six and it is important that people do the hard yards as well. We have people that have played well at the top of the order but they also need to do it when the ball goes grey, that's when the game starts."

For Sri Lanka it has been a remarkable comeback after their three defeats before Christmas. Today's win puts them firmly in contention to reach the best-of-three finals at England's expense.

"The batsmen went through a lean patch before Christmas and now everyone is batting better," said their captain Sanath Jayasuriya, who today scored his second century in a row.

"I have been through a lean patch, but I thought I would come through that and I started playing my natural game. After Christmas everything changed. Batsmen and spinners started playing well and all things are happening now.

"We need to win three more games. We need to play like this and we are in with a good chance (of making the final). There is still a long way to go in the series and we want to continue like this and the cricket we are playing now."