Cricket: Vettori poised to secure remarkable double

It would be a rare day in the cricketing world when a statistic of any note was able to sneak up on Daniel Vettori.

The man who, when the opening test against South Africa starts tonight, needs just 56 more runs to achieve the 2000-run 200 wicket double, has always been a student of the game, and says he's had his eye on this one for some time.

Only 11 players have previously achieved the double, among them the greatest all-rounders to have played the game - Ian Botham, Garry Sobers, Imran Khan, Kapil Dev, Shaun Pollock and the two New Zealanders Richard Hadlee and Chris Cairns.

Vettori, New Zealand's youngest test representative and the youngest spinner in the world to take 100 test wickets, admitted this week that the prospect of gaining entry into an official all-rounders category was an exciting one.

"I'm driven by stats to a certain extent, I'm interested in what's happened previously," he said. "If you look at the guys who've done it before, it's nice company to share.

"I'd enjoy ticking it off the list and carrying on to something else."

Vettori is not alone in his race to complete the double; South African Jacques Kallis needs just four more wickets to reach 200 and join the true heavyweights of his profession, those who have scored 3000 runs and claimed 200 wickets.

At present seven-strong after Pollock followed Cairns to the milestone, the list will grow to eight when Kallis takes four wickets, and is sure to be expanded soon after by the arrival of England's Freddie Flintoff and Australia's Shane Warne.

But while Vettori was happy to talk about personal milestones he said the team were playing down their "final frontier" aspirations in South Africa, where New Zealand have only won three previous tests, and never a series.

"We tried to stay low key in our build-up, rather than trying to steel up and make too much of the history," Vettori said.

"It's not something we wanted to focus on, or talk about, really. It was more important to take it moment by moment."

"We're pretty aware of our record against South Africa; but we're here to win test matches and this is the first time in a long time that we've been at full-strength.

"There's a lot to be positive about."