It is the start of the second session of the third day of the 2008 Adelaide Test. Australia is playing New Zealand – although if the Trade Practices Act were to label this cricket match, it would be ‘Australia versus Daniel Vettori, plus others’.
It is why, when you watch the exciting Australia versus New Zealand series this summer, you should spare a thought for Vettori.
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Daniel Vettori was one of Stephen Fleming’s team that never played in a Test win against Australia. In 1997, the team’s main achievement was to not get beaten as comprehensively as in 1993, where New Zealand’s performances were so inept after Martin Crowe was forced home they were the catalyst for stand-in captain Ken Rutherford to bring the verbal equivalent of the cat o’ nine tails to his press conferences.
In 2000, Australia whitewashed the Black Caps in New Zealand, but the Kiwis went down kicking and screaming. Australia was forced to confront their phobia of small-to-mid-range fourth innings totals in two of the three Tests. In the other, Vettori took 12 wickets to bowl Australia out twice for the only time in their 16-match winning streak.
This was in stark contrast to the West Indies’ efforts later in the year, where they put their hands on their heads before the first ball of the series and only occasionally lifted them.
The Fleming generation came even closer to pulling off their greatest heist in 2001. At Brisbane, thanks to a mixture of bold cricket and rain, they were within panting distance of a sporting fourth innings target. After rain left the Hobart Test dead and cremated, New Zealand dominated the Perth Test from start to finish but ended up three wickets short of finishing that great Australian side off. Vettori took six wickets in the first innings, but only two in the second. It was the last real fourth-innings opportunity he would ever receive against Australia.
In the 2004 and 2005 encounters, there was a black hole in the New Zealand side; Shane Bond. His constant injuries robbed New Zealand of their most potent attacking weapon. It showed as New Zealand found bowling Australia out for less than 400 to be harder than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, and Australia’s tail was particularly pesky.
The disparity was so great that there was nothing Fleming, who was widely regarded as one of the finest captains of his era, could do about it.
Vettori, Fleming’s logical successor, became captain in 2007. He soon realised the truth of the Charles-Guillaume Etienne phrase, “If you want something done right, do it yourself.”
If Etienne said it – it says so on his Wikipedia page, but students are continuously told by their teachers, “Don’t trust Wikipedia.” Wikipedia may be a good starting point, but it cannot be relied upon. You must find another source.
For a student there are many alternative academic sources with more credibility, such as other popular websites, journal articles and books.
For Daniel Vettori in 2008, there were many alternative sources for scoring runs or taking wickets. But he was always the one with the most credibility, or any credibility.
Even an opposition fan had to spare a thought for him.
Earlier in 2008, Vettori had won an overseas Test on his own, with both bat and ball. If the match had somehow been left with only one umpire, his skill and determination were such that he probably would have grabbed a hat stand and found a way to animate it.
But that Test was in Bangladesh, not Australia. As he led New Zealand back out onto the field for the afternoon session of the third day’s play at Adelaide in 2008, Australia were only five wickets down and already 80 ahead.
Vettori had chosen to bat on Day 1, but any Test captain that sees his team get bowled out for 270 on a typical Adelaide Oval pitch after winning the toss isn’t really making a decision about whether he bats or bowls first. He might as well be making a decision about whether he’d have more fun smashing his head against a brick wall or standing on his head.
At the start of the afternoon session, Michael Clarke and Brad Haddin were well-set. Well-set to bat all day. Well-set to score at two runs an over against Vettori, and well-set to score at the invariably quicker rates they can safely muster against every other bowler.
On this Groundhog Day, Vettori kept himself on. For much of the morning session, without a break during the afternoon session, and still in the evening session. When the lead had become too big for the Test to end in any other result than a thumping Australian victory. When he had bowled more than 50 overs in the innings. And even after New Zealand’s appalling dropped catches had graphically demonstrated that they didn’t deserve Vettori, or any bowler like him.
One had to spare a thought for him. He was a Test bowler, but he wasn’t so good that he could do it on his own on a flat pitch against good opposition with incompetent fielding to boot.
Vettori’s efforts seemed fruitless at the time. But then, such days probably seems fruitless to a club veteran captaining rookies greener than Bob Brown.
Fate dealt Vettori a harsh blow. Australia won easily in New Zealand in 2009, and when New Zealand finally broke their Test drought against Australia, at Hobart in 2011, Vettori was a late injury withdrawal. If New Zealand could ask to be without the services of a spinner on any pitch, it would’ve been that one. It didn’t just look at spinners with contempt – even though Nathan Lyon played – it hired Donald Trump to inform them, “You’re fired,” after telling batsmen to soak their ties in tomato sauce.
Vettori’s replacement in that Hobart Test was Trent Boult, on debut. And while Vettori won’t be playing in this series, Boult looms as ominous for Australia’s inexperienced batting order, as do the rest of the fast bowlers. The only one who doesn’t is the spinner, Mark Craig. Post-Shane Warne, New Zealand’s only clear advantage over Australia was Vettori. Now Australia’s only clear advantage is Lyon.
Come the first Test this summer, three members of the New Zealand side that were outclassed at Adelaide in 2008 will be playing: Brendon McCullum, Ross Taylor and Tim Southee.
Whether these players succeed or fail in this series, Vettori’s 2008 toil at Adelaide will be shown to be anything other than fruitless.
New Zealand’s rise from its low ebb took several years and went well beyond Vettori, but his influence can’t be quantified. While they weren’t a Test side that could beat Australia, he set an excellent example.
He never gave up, even when he was in charge of a team that perennially lay in the gutter when facing better sides. What made him a Test cricketer often wasn’t pretty, or instant. It wasn’t often something you could put in a one-minute YouTube video. He wasn’t a cricketer who gave into the fashions of the day.
The greatest players of the game are impossible for mortals to imitate. Daniel Vettori was a mortal, and his approach to the game was what New Zealand needed when he was leading a decidedly mortal team.
Australia are about to come up against an entertaining, tough, combative and aggressive Test side that could well defeat them.
Not “a Test side” in the same reluctant tone of voice, that relies far too heavily on one source, with black holes. A Test side, as the Trade Practices Act would describe them.
In that 2008 Adelaide Test, there was no sense of occasion. There is now.
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