Lanka batsmen shine on Vettori's big day

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Colombo: What’s in a record? Well, for all-rounders like New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori, it means the sort of impressive achievement that ranks him high in the list of modern Test gladiators.

As a Test side, there are those who feel the Kiwis should rank no higher than their current seven, which makes you wonder about reality and its juxtaposition with relativity. After all, the pool of players from which the team is drawn would barely fill a New Delhi suburb such as Lodi Colony.

Yet it has been the New Zealand captain who if you please has helped steal some of the Sri Lanka thunder on the opening day of the second Test at the Sinhalese Sports Club as the tourists overcame the Galle bug and mounted a disciplined performance.

When he made his debut as a teenager against England at the Basin Reserve more than 12 years ago on the advice of the then Kiwi coach Steve Rixon, the prediction had been for a solid future. Rixon, of course, was not being clairvoyant; neither were the New Zealand selectors. He was just a talented left-arm spinner not too long out of school.

Well, 94 Tests later and a road that has become well signposted, he has not only taken on the mantel of captaincy and selector, but has become the eighth all-rounder to surpass the 3000 runs/300 wickets at Test level. There are two New Zealanders in this list headed by Shane Warne and includes Sri Richard Hadlee, India’s Kapil Dev, Shaun Pollock, Chaminda Vaas and Imran Khan along with Ian Botham.

Vettori alluded to this when he mentioned how joining a list with the big four all rounders of the 1980s – Hadlee, Botham. Kapil Dev and Imran Khan – was special; and so it should be. It doesn’t happen every day either.

The interesting point here is that there are two New Zealanders in the list and only one Australian, which makes their Tasman Sea cousins smile as the Aussies always like to joke how the Kiwis all live in one of their suburbs. Mention their rugby, however, creates a different image and one of acknowledgement. But that’s the muddied oafs for you. With cricket it is far different as, like the current Australian side, New Zealand are in a stage of transition and the batsman have been told how it is time to start delivering on their skills, talent and ability.