Finger of fate points to Vettori
By RICHARD BOOCK - Sunday Star Times
Relevant offers
OPINION: FINGER spinners were never supposed to do this. When it came to test cricket they were expected to understand their station and avoid becoming too big for their boots.
They were unfashionable and enigmatic; often considered lucky to be playing in the first place. Many batsmen viewed them as nothing more than human boundary dispensers. They were the meek, yes. But they were never meant to inherit the earth.
Often we struggled to even appreciate their presence.
When Daniel Vettori took the second innings' wicket of Thilan Samaraweera at Galle last week, taking him past Derek Underwood's career total of 297 to become the most successful left-arm spinner in test history, no one so much as noticed. When he snared Kumar Sangakkara at Colombo to reach the 300-mark, many preferred to concentrate on his all-round feat of scoring 3000 runs as well.
With that in mind, it's perhaps time to recognise the sheer enormity of Vettori's bowling achievements. I mean, if you accept Muttiah Muralitharan is unique as a wrist-spinning off-spinner, the New Zealand captain now stands alongside only Harbhajan Singh and Lance Gibbs as finger-spinners to take more than 300 wickets. He has eclipsed the records of the best left-arm tweakers to draw breath, Underwood and Bishen Bedi. He is a straight-up Kiwi champion.
Many will point to his strengths: his variation of pace, arm-ball, top-spinner and his flight. All true of course, but perhaps Vettori's biggest asset these days is his close understanding of the finger-spinners' art. It hasn't come easily for a schoolboy who used to fancy himself as a fast-bowler.
As renown coach Billy Ibadulla once said, he initially bowled for New Zealand as if he thought he was a wrist-spinner; full of aggression and with a clear intent to attack.
Today, as a 30-year-old with 94 tests under his belt, Vettori is the consummate finger-spinner. He understands his role. He knows his job is to suffocate the run-rate from one end, to give the batsman nothing to score off, to be as patient as a cat watching a mouse-hole and to create such pressure that, eventually, his opponents make a mistake. Precision, parsimony and patience; it seems every discipline has its three Ps.
His record is all the more astonishing given the adversity he has had to manage. Involved in a nasty motor accident as a teenager that left him with two damaged vertebrae and a broken cheekbone and nose, Vettori had to fight back from a potentially career-ending back injury in the first half of his career, one that saw him play just a solitary test in an 18-month stretch. The dramatic changes required to his action might have doomed a less-determined character.
Apart from that, there was also the not-so-small issue of Vettori playing about half of his tests in New Zealand, where the pitches were invariably more sympathetic to the seamers.
In the 2002-03 home series against India, the wickets at Hamilton and Wellington were prepared so generously for the pacemen that the Black Caps' most successful bowler wasn't even required to measure his run-up. Twelve of his 18 five-wicket bags have been taken overseas.
You could also argue, mischievously perhaps, that Vettori suffered the additional handicap of never being able to bowl at the New Zealand test batsmen, and (less mischievously) that he seldom had consistent support from the other end, notwithstanding some brief cameos from the likes of Chris Cairns, Dion Nash and Shane Bond.
His has been a lonely, often exasperating road to travel, yet he continues to make remarkably good headway.
Those who claim Vettori's value is exaggerated need to take a closer look at his record. While his overall numbers are impressive enough, over the past five years (or 38 tests) he has taken 140 wickets at 28.30, while scoring 1972 runs at 40.24.
In matches his side win he averages 21.40 with the ball; when they lose or draw he blows out to 37.24 or worse. Not since JR Reid has a New Zealand team depended so heavily on one player.
Much has been made of Vettori's entry into the all-rounders' 300-wicket/3000-run club, although it's hard to take this quite so seriously. How anyone can talk about an elite bracket of all-rounders that includes Shane Warne (with a batting average of 17.32) has yet to be adequately explained. Vettori is probably the world's best No8, and the historic frailty of his team's top-order batting makes his run-scoring contributions invaluable. But for all that he is still only a No8.
How many wickets might he take? Fred Trueman, when asked in 1964 if he thought anyone else might claim 300 scalps, admitted it was a possibility, before adding, "but they'll be bloody tired". Vettori would probably agree. However, if he chooses to play for another five or six years (as he easily could), Sir Richard Hadlee's record of 431 will almost certainly topple, and the 500-mark should be clearly in his sights; maybe even Courtney Walsh's tally of 519.
Whatever you might make of that, it would seem petty not to take this chance to acknowledge Vettori as the modern-day cricketing phenomenon he is; an orthodox finger-spinner succeeding in a game where, until recently, only those with a spare ace up their sleeves, or a party trick with their elbow were receiving the fame and acclaim.
To think, an ordinary finger-spinner, of all things. It just wasn't meant to happen.
