Cricket: Welcome to my place, Harbhajan

By RICHARD BOOCK

Leading New Zealand strike bowler Daniel Vettori is relishing the prospect of his upcoming duel with India's top spin merchant, Harbhajan Singh.


Vettori, who like Harbhajan has taken 139 test wickets, will be the player New Zealand look to most when it comes to the small problem of dismissing India's dream batting line-up at Wellington and Hamilton.


With doubts hovering over the availability of Chris Cairns for the series opener, Vettori will be far and away New Zealand's most established test bowler at the Basin Reserve, and one of the few with any experience of bowling at Tendulkar and Co.


In five tests, he has enjoyed his share of success against them as well, dismissing Rahul Dravid three times and Tendulkar twice, and taking six for 127 at Kanpur two seasons ago.


On the other hand, he ran into some difficulties during the 1998-99 series here, when he ended the tests with two wickets at 91.50.


As it happened, Harbhajan also had unhappy memories of that series, failing to force his way into the first test side at Wellington and going wicketless in the second at Hamilton.


Vettori said he could remember India captain Sourav Ganguly commenting at the time that Harbhajan was not ready for the test arena, and was impressed when the 22 year-old off-spinner fought his way back to become one of the best slow bowlers in the world.

Proving particularly deadly on home soil, Harbhajan announced himself on the world stage last year, when he took 32 wickets in three tests against Steve Waugh's Australians, including a series-clinching seven for 133 and eight for 84 at Chennai.

"I'm particularly looking forward to playing against Harbhajan because he's one of the best finger spinners around and has come on in leaps and bounds since he was here last," Vettori said.

"I rate him extremely highly. He bowls an attacking line, he tosses one in that goes the other way and he's a competitive fella."

Asked what immediate problems the Indian batting line-up posed for his orthodox left-armers, Vettori said the most pressing assignment he had at the moment was attempting to get to sleep at night.

"Ganguly will attack me; Rahul Dravid will sit on me and wait for a mistake; Sachin will do anything he wants to do; and we haven't even mentioned Virender Sehwag or VVS Laxman.

"It's too much to digest if you look at them collectively, but I'm always thinking about them individually, working out game plans for each batsman and simply trying to contain them and frustrate them."

Vettori was mindful that New Zealand were able to strangle an explosive Pakistani line-up at home two summers ago, mainly by applying a methodical and patient game-plan against batsmen who were stroke-players by both instinct and inclination.

The strategy will almost certainly be dusted off again against John Wright's Indian side at Wellington.

"I think one of the keys to our success as a bowling attack is our team-work. We don't tend to rip through many teams, we're more suited to a collective game-plan and it's paid off for us over the years."

Vettori suggested this summer's tourists were likely to prove more of a handful than most, as they were clearly superior to the 1998-99 combination, and were keen to win a series out of the subcontinent for first time since 1986.

"They're a much better team all round, I think, and certainly they'll be a more entertaining side."