Christchurch, Feb 12 NZPA - New Zealand cricket captain Dan Vettori is not about the curb his batsmen's attacking instincts.

His team almost made a mess of their chase for 242 to beat Bangladesh in the third and final one-day international here last night before a composed stand of 34 by James Franklin and Ian Butler saw them home with three wickets and 5.1 overs to spare.

Questions were asked of the New Zealanders for the first time in the series, which they won 3-0, and in some cases the answers offered were unconvincing.

Many of the batsmen got themselves out, with opener Brendon McCullum getting an inside edge on to his stumps when forcefully playing across the line after rushing to 19, Peter Ingram playing down the wrong line on 25, and Ross Taylor leaving his crease then missing the ball completely to be stumped for three.

As well, topscorer Martin Guptill picked out a fielder in the deep when on 91 and seemingly destined for his second one-day century, and Vettori himself did something similar after making 34.

But the New Zealanders were determined to knock the runs off as quickly as possible and adopt an aggressive approach, a plan of attack Vettori agrees with.

"We have to. It's the nature of the game these days," he said.

"While we were only chasing 240 we still want to be deliberate about everything we're doing.

"We want to try and be as ruthless as possible because we know when we come up against Australia that if we don't score quickly against them then we won't get a total that's challenging."

That said, he was still a touch disappointed his team could not reach their target without all the drama, after losing their seventh wicket with 210 runs on the board in the 38th over.

"There were a lot more runs in that wicket in the end so for us to put ourselves under so much pressure was disappointing. Some of the shot selection that led to some of the dismissals was the toughest thing."

To be fair not all of New Zealand's problems were self inflicted after Bangladesh captain and allrounder Shakib Al Hasan produced a quality spell of left-arm spin bowling as he extracted turn on the AMI Stadium portable drop-in pitch to take four for 33.

Al Hasan earlier scored 36 with the bat in a Bangladeshi innings dominated by a quality 101 from 23-year-old opener Imrul Kayes.

Kayes' maiden one-day century, in his 10th match, guaranteed his team a competitive total, although they lost their way in the last 10 overs when five wickets fell for the addition of just 43 runs.

It was a particularly frustrating period for coach Jamie Siddons.

"We set the game up really well with the bat and then in those last 10 overs we blew it, we played poorly," the Australian said.

"We'd normally look at scoring 80 to 100 off the last 10 so we were 40-50 short."

Vettori and young seamer Tim Southee played major parts in hauling back the run rate, both ending with three wickets each.

It was easily Bangladesh's best performance in the series after they had lost the opening games by margins of 146 runs and five wickets.

"We are a much better side than we've shown although we are still a team of 22-23-year-olds capable of inconsistent performances," Siddons said.

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