After sweeping up a couple of special milestones in his return to Test cricket in the UAE, Dan Vettori chalked up another at Napier yesterday, becoming the first New Zealander to take 300 ODI wickets, when he snuck a ball through Nawroz Mangal’s defenses.
Typically, he wasn’t bothered.
“I went into the World Cup not thinking about that milestone, I wasn’t thinking I’d take this many wickets in this few a games. It’ll be something nice to look back on but we are in the middle of a World Cup, it’ll be an important game on Friday and then probably the most important game of our careers on Saturday, so in a month or so’s time it’ll be nice to look back on it,” said Vettori.
The fact he took a wicket with his first ball of the match, in the third over in what was meant to be a chance for Tim Southee and Trent Boult to swap ends shows what rare form he’s in in this tournament. He’s been keen to emphaise that he’s just playing his role in the team of tying the opposition down and setting things up for the strike bowlers – not that’s worked out that way.
“Obviously in any form of the game you can bowl well but not take wickets, once again I was trying to fill that role of being as economical as possible, and the wickets came today. That doesn’t always happen but it’s great when it does,” sais Vettori.
Mike Hesson sees the return of Dan Vettori, after a long period out of the national side in an effort to get his body right for this home World Cup as a special bonus:
“He’s always capable of chipping wickets out, and the fact he’s been taking bags of wickets has been helpful for us. And I think whenever sides try to attack him, that’s when he takes wickets. They either respect him and he goes for none for 30, or they try and go after him – if they do, he stands a good chance of taking some wickets,” said Hesson.
Vettori, who played his 291st ODI against Afghanistan brings a truckload of experience and big tournament nous to the team, and is all too aware that the BLACKCAPS current form will count for little when the knockout stages begin:
“We’re just trying to win games regardless of the situation, if we get caught up trying to write a check list of what’s right and what’s wrong to win the World Cup it’s not going to work, it ’s just purely about winning games and that’s what we’ve been able to do so far, and hopefully continue in the important knock out stages.
“Like a lot of teams, when you get through to the knock out stages that’s where it really starts, all the teams that eventually make it have match winners in them, you can’t sit back and say which teams are in form and who hasn’t played well because all teams going in there to play their best. You look at the caliber of players that South Africa have, look at Pakistan, look at India, anyone that we come up against in that quarter final are going to be tough opposition. It’s the nature of the way we look at things through a positive prism, they’re all good players so there’s no talk of who’s out of form,” said Vettori.
