New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori was left to digest another poor batting performance from his side.

The six-wicket win in the third Chappell-Hadlee one-day match in Hamilton gave Australia a 2-1 lead in the five-match series which moves to Auckland for game four on Thursday.

"We put a bit too much pressure on ourselves with losing wickets and I suppose put too much pressure on Scott and Gareth to pick up the slack then be aggressive near the end," said New Zealand skipper Vettori.

"It was a total that was 40 or 50 runs short and we couldn't put any pressure on Australia because of it."

New Zealand will need to find a solution to the problems at the top of the order and quickly with just two games remaining in the series.

"I suppose it's just taking ownership of your innings and realising that 20s and 30s and even 50s and 60s aren't good enough against Australia," added Vettori. "You need guys to kick on. You need those big partnerships and you can't consistently lose wickets."

New Zealand's depleted bowling stocks took a further hit when Daryl Tuffey (calf) and James Franklin (hamstring) were ruled out which meant a return for Michael Mason after almost two years in the international wilderness. It proved to be a tough comeback with Haddin taking 20 runs of his very first over. But he responded well to claim Ponting's wicket.

The workload was shared between Vettori, Styris, Southee, Mason and part-timer Guptill after Bond left the field late in the match with a sore thumb after a failed caught and bowled chance off Haddin early in his innings.

"It was one bowler too few but you still need guys to step up and bowl well," Vettori said.

"At times we did a really good job with the ball and at times we were poor.

"I was pleased with the way Michael Mason came back because it was a pretty tough start but he finished pretty well."

Ponting described his side's performance as their best of the series to date and it came after vice-captain Michael Clarke's sudden departure back to Australia the previous night.

"It was a very convincing win tonight. To take our powerplay as late as we did and we really cantered across the line from about 30 overs onwards. We did it pretty easy," said Ponting.

"We've been looking for this performance the entire series and we've played our best game to date. The momentum, if there is any to be taken out of this game, is obviously with us.

"If we start strongly on Thursday hopefully the momentum continues for us there."

Haddin's innings was the backbone of the victory and came after Ponting had asked for his top order to produce a big score after they failed to kick on from good starts in the two previous matches.

"It's what we've been asking our top order to deliver. I said to the boys this morning I know that if someone in our top order gets 80 plus or 100 that we're going to get well over 300 every time we bat with the nature of these grounds over here.

"Luckily we were chasing 240. Our bowlers did a great job there taking wickets consistently through the New Zealand batting innings.

"It was a more commanding performance and Brad's obviously played a massive role in us winning tonight."