Australian captain Ricky Ponting warned Sri Lanka that a policy of preparing dry, spin-friendly pitches could backfire on the hosts in the current five-match one-day international series.

Australia adapted quickly to the conditions, pilling up an imposing 262 for six before bowling out Sri Lanka for 178 under lights to win the first match by 84 runs on Friday.

"If you play on wickets like that, I don't care how good a batting side you are, you're going to struggle chasing a 262-run total against a decent attack," Ponting told reporters.

"If they want to prepare those kind of tracks then it's going to be equally as hard for them as it is for us," he added.

"We have shown them tonight how well we can play in these conditions and they now have something to think about, they know they have to improve a lot."

"The pleasing thing about tonight was that we did everything we said we were going to do coming into the game.

"We played their spin sensibly, rotating the strike and hitting the bad balls for four and kept wickets in hand for the end where Symo [Andrew Symonds] did a good job for us."

Ponting was pleased with the way his batsmen handled the key threat of Sri Lanka off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan who took two for 30 from 10 overs.

"The guys have had a good look at him tonight and we did a tremendous job to keep him wicketless until his last over," he said.

Sri Lanka captain Marvan Atapattu was happy with his team's performance in the field but disappointed with the loss of early wickets.

Sri Lanka collapsed to 24 for three as both openers were run out within the space of four balls.

"We came back well in the field after their initial assault and on a pitch like that 250-odd was gettable," Atapattu said.

"But we had a shocking start from which we never recovered. It was a tragedy to lose Sanath (Jayasuriya) and Romesh (Kaluwitharana) so early because we know the firepower they have."