Daniel Vettori
The BLACKCAPS captain talks to the press before the second test in Napier.
On the benefit of the last 3-4 days training…
"I think a lot of guys have worked pretty hard. We’ve tried to keep it as simple as possible in terms of our analysis of what went wrong. There were a number of things that we need to improve on and most of that comes through hard work. I’ve seen a lot of that in the last few days in the net sessions. We’ll see the results over the next five days."
On the most important areas to work on…
"Probably all three come into play. I think the longevity of our batting innings. We need to bat for long periods of time, we need our batsmen to bat for at least 120 overs against this lot. If we don’t do that, we don’t give our bowlers an opportunity to rest and also to mount a challenge against them because we know they have got a quality batting line up so we really need to improve on that longevity of our innings."
On the Indians being firmer favourites…
"I suppose so. They played so well in the first test. Pretty much everything they did, they did really well. They played to a plan and seemed to perform at every moment and won every key moment. Every element we weren’t good in they were great so we’re going to have to reverse that pretty quickly otherwise they seem like a team that works pretty well with momentum and just keep rolling with it."
On the fitness of Daniel Flynn...
"I think we still want to give him a fitness test. We want to see how it fronts up. It was still quite swollen (his hand). He’s a pretty tough little guy and want to play no matter what but we’ll try to make the sensible decision."
About the pitch…
"I think it comes across as a pretty similar Napier wicket. Obviously aesthetically it’s not quite as pretty as it normally is and probably doesn’t have that consistency of grass cover but talking to Phil [groundsman] he’s pretty comfortable with it and thinks it will be a traditional Napier deck."
On wanting more grass cover…
"I think we know what’s expected when you come to Napier. We’ve probably got to move away from wanting what we want and actually just performing on whatever we get. That’s going to be the key for us. We know we can probably perform better on a wicket that’s got a little bit in it but we’ve got to make sure we do the job on this particular wicket."
On all his batting he had to do affecting his bowling…
I hope not. I think I still bowled relatively the same. I’ve enjoyed the fact that my batting has improved so I can play a complete part in the game and it’s not one discipline. It’s makes it more enjoyable.
