Cricket: Desperate Dan struggling

By Richard Boock

WELLINGTON - Perhaps the most worrying aspect of the New Zealand cricket team's respectable record this summer has been the decline of their leading spin bowler.

New Zealand's fortunes heading into today's third test against South Africa have been favourable all season - some might say a touch jammy - but not much of the luck has rubbed off on Daniel Vettori.

Not only has the 20-year-old left-arm spinner had to contend with the usual technical adjustments for a bowler of his age, he has also had to bowl at some of the best players of spin bowling in the world - Dravid, Tendulkar, Azharruddin, Kallis and Cullinan. His figures are starting to show it.

For all that, however, one suspects just as much damage is being caused by the somewhat naive captaincy of Stephen Fleming and Dion Nash, neither of whom appear to appreciate spin as anything more than a way of drying their clothes.

Vettori was as ineffectual as the rest of his team-mates during the first test at Auckland, but was bowled so sparingly in Christchurch that Nash was asked afterwards why the spinner had seen so little of the action.

It was because, Nash replied, it would have been "inappropriate" to have bowled Vettori at a time when the South Africans were so dominant.

Inappropriate? South Africa ended up making 442 for one, increasing their tally during this Bank of New Zealand series to 1063 for six, and if anyone was going to take a wicket on that pitch, it was his spin bowler.

As it was, the lack of understanding over how to use Vettori was never highlighted more than when Kallis struck him for 18 off six balls at Christchurch, which immediately prompted Nash to remove him from the attack.

More canny and experienced captains would have kept him on and adjusted their field to nullify Kallis' threat, but in that one short moment Vettori's confidence was further eroded, and New Zealand's best chance of taking another wicket had disappeared.

This has been Vettori's main problem. Not as much his own form, as the mindset of his skippers.

Too often he is considered only after the quicker bowlers have proved ineffective, and too often he is used in desperation rather than in calculated attack. A last resort, instead of a surprise package.

At the moment it seems that Nash has more confidence in him as a batsman than as a bowler.

And when Vettori has been required to bowl this summer, the left-armer has suffered from field placings which might have been devised by a group of RSA vets after a night out on the turps.

Time after time he bowls without a man on the 45deg behind square, leaving himself open to be milked with impunity off anything shorter than a half-volley, while the idea of applying pressure through the joint use of a silly-point and short square-leg must have become unfashionable.

Coach Steve Rixon said yesterday that Vettori has suffered because he was being asked to play a role which was not ideal for spin bowlers.

"He's a guy who usually comes into the attack when the opposition have lost a couple of wickets, but against South Africa he's probably been introduced too early - and that hasn't been good for him," Rixon said.

The message New Zealand were taking from that was the need to make a decent and competitive start to the test, unlike the gloomy beginnings at Auckland and Christchurch.

New Zealand: Dion Nash (captain), Matt Horne, Bryan Young, Roger Twose, Nathan Astle, Gary Stead, Chris Harris, Adam Parore, Daniel Vettori, Shayne O'Connor, Simon Doull, Geoff Allott.

South Africa: Hansie Cronje (captain), Gary Kirsten, Herschelle Gibbs, Jacques Kallis, Daryll Cullinan, Jonty Rhodes, Shaun Pollock, Mark Boucher, Lance Klusener, Steve Elworthy, Paul Adams, Dale Benkenstein.