Cricket: Vettori's spin could trouble Windies

West Indian fast bowler Fidel Edwards in action on the Eden Park outer oval yesterday. Picture / Paul Estcourt

It wasn't so long ago that a New Zealand spinner was considered an endangered species when playing against the West Indies.

Faced with the belligerence of Everton Weekes, Garfied Sobers, Vivian Richards and Brian Lara, anyone who dared to bowl slow against the West Indians was usually smashed into a faraway suburb, and nearly bankrupted by the taxi-driver who returned the ball.

The story goes that one particular New Zealand left-arm spinner took the liberty of lecturing Gordon Greenidge at length after beating him on several occasions, eventually holding up the ball in front of him, and describing it in intimate detail.

"It's red and round, and it looks like this," was the alleged taunt.

The next delivery was smote clean out of the ground, to the accompanying rejoinder from Greenidge that, "You know what it looks like - you go and find it."

But Daniel Vettori has put a stop to all of that.

New Zealand's most successful spinner, the 27-year-old has an impressive record against the West Indies, underlined by his effort in the 2000 NatWest final at Lord's, when he took career best figures of five for 30.

Vettori said yesterday he was looking forward to maintaining his momentum against this season's tourists, and said New Zealand shouldn't be afraid of acknowledging their favouritism in both the ODIs and tests.

The West Indies will begin their tour on Thursday evening with a Twenty20 international at Eden Park, after which they will head for Wellington and the opening match of the one-day series.

"I wouldn't say we're overwhelming favourites but I think we generally start as favourites against most teams at home," Vettori said yesterday.

"Touring teams often take a bit of time to adapt to our conditions and I think we saw a bit of that in the way Sri Lanka began the most recent series. The Windies haven't played any one-day cricket for a while and we're in the middle of our season, so I suppose we are the team to beat.

"But having said that, if they find their feet they're a very good side and we'll have to play very well to win."

New Zealand face fresh challenges with the absence of all-rounders Chris Cairns, Jacob Oram, Kyle Mills and Andre Adams, and it remains to be seen how coach John Bracewell will respond with his batting order.

But Vettori provided an insight yesterday when he confirmed that he - and probably Brendon McCullum - would be moving up one place in the order to take up the slack left by Cairns and Oram.

"I suppose myself and Brendon are a bit lucky in a way because we've had chances to open for our domestic sides, and we know how to carry a little more batting responsibility," he said.

"But if I'm going to bat eight and we're moving up a place in the order, then there's going to be a greater challenge for a few of us, there's no doubt about that."

Vettori bamboozled the West Indian batsmen during the 1999-2000 series, emerging from the five ODIs with nine wickets at 18.33, snared at a suffocating economy rate of 3.43.

But he found the going far more difficult in the Caribbean in 2002, taking just one wicket in four matches at 127.00, while bleeding an alarming 6.35 runs an over.

Vettori said yesterday the loss of so many all-rounders had redefined the responsibilities of the remaining players and had made it even clearer that everyone had to perform in their specialist tasks.

"Without a Chris Cairns or a Jacob Oram there's probably a bigger responsibility on us to contribute across the board," he said. "But I still think it's the top four or five batsmen who'll win one-day games for us."

NZ V WEST INDIES

Thursday: Twenty20, Eden Park, Auckland

Saturday: First ODI, Westpac Stadium, Wellington

February 22: Second ODI, Queenstown.

February 25: Third ODI, Jade Stadium, Christchurch.

March 1: Fourth ODI, McLean Park, Napier.

March 4: Fifth ODI, Eden Park, Auckland.