New Zealand's captain, Stephen Fleming, walks back to the dressingroom after his dismissal during their semi-final against Sri Lanka at Sabina Park on Tuesday. - Reuters

STEPHEN FLEMING'S pronouncement that Sri Lanka often struggle in the last 10 overs came back to haunt him in Tuesday's World Cup semi-final.

The 1996 champions smashed 102 in that time to take the game away from New Zealand, with captain Mahela Jayawardene hitting an unbeaten 115.

Excellent spells from Lasith Malinga and Muttiah Muralitharan then wrapped up an 81-run win for Sri Lanka and hastened Fleming's departure as one-day captain.

New Zealand, who have never reached a World Cup final, must now ponder why they lost a fifth semi.

However, Fleming was proud of what he had achieved in 218 matches over 10 years as one-day skipper. He will continue to make himself available for limited overs internationals and wants to stay on as Test captain.

Accepts defeat

"To register the amount of semi-finals we've had is, I would say, a pretty proud record. We're disappointed we've not gone further, but there are a lot of sides that haven't made the semis," Fleming said.

He clearly regretted saying before the match that Sri Lanka's batters were vulnerable late in the innings but accepted the heavy defeat.

"We weren't as good as we could be. It probably had something to do with the occasion. We are just not good enough. When you get to this stage there are teams that are better than us."

The Kiwis, with their strong batting depth and varied bowling attack, came into the World Cup on the back of a 3-0 whitewash over Australia in the Chappell-Hadlee series.

They then easily overcame England in their opening group match and had a relatively simple passage into the semi-finals, their only defeats coming against Sri Lanka again and defending champions Australia.

The fact that New Zealand emerged as serious challengers very early in this World Cup shows how well they have done for a rugby-obsessed nation with a population of just four million and a small pool of cricketers.

That pool was greatly disrupted though during the tournament by a string of injury problems.

Fleming is expected to be replaced by vice captain and spinner Daniel Vettori, but he will have a tough job to avoid stalling at the semi-final stage yet again.