Daniel Vettori

Daniel Vettori Biography

Daniel Luca Vettori is a New Zealand former cricketer who played in all the three formats. He was born on 27 January 1979 in Auckland and brought up in Hamilton.

Vettori is a left arm spinner, but he began to establish himself as more of an all-rounder. He matured into a useful lower-order left-handed batsman having scored 4,000 Test runs which include six centuries and 23 half centuries.

Vettori is currently New Zealand's leading ODI wicket-taker and also the first left arm spinner in cricket history to take more than 300 wickets in Tests. He was also the first left arm spinner in test history to capture 350 test wickets.

Background

In 1996, Vettori started his career by playing cricket for Northern Districts Knights. He has represented a number of clubs like the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League and Brisbane Heat in the Big Bash League.      

Debut

Vettori is the youngest player to have represented New Zealand in Test cricket making his debut in 1996–97 at the age of 18.

In his debut test match, he batted at number 11 and managed to score just 3 runs. He bowled 34.3 overs and took 2 wickets against England.

Rise to Glory

Vettori capitalised his spot in the team by capturing 100 test wickets at the age of 21 to become the youngest test cricketer to do so.

In 1999–2000, he took 7/87 and finished with career best innings figures against Australia at Auckland, and career best match figures by taking 12/149. He became the only New Zealand cricketer to have taken a dozen wickets in a Test on two occasions.

He is also the leading run scorer in test history while batting at number 8 position or lower. He is New Zealand's most capped test and ODI cricketer and with his all round performance is regarded as one of the greatest cricketers of all time.

Low Points

Vettori was criticized when he got engaged in angry shouting from the balcony at The Oval regarding a controversial run out that had occurred. He also refused to shake hands with the England team after the match.

Club Career

Vettori was bought by Royal Challengers Bangalore for $55000 in 2011. In the 34 matches he played in his IPL career, he scored 121 runs at an average of 15.12 and took 28 wickets for his side at an average of 31.39.

Captaincy

Vettori had captained the New Zealand in ODI cricket on occasions when regular captain Stephen Fleming was not available before becoming captain on a permanent basis in 2007.

He captained New Zealand at the inaugural Twenty20 World Championship in South Africa and later became the captain in all the three formats of the game. Vettori's captaincy did not had a good start, losing a Test series in England.

Records

He's currently New Zealand’s second leading wicket taker in test history with 362 wickets. He's the youngest test cricketer to capture 100 test wickets and also the youngest player to have represented New Zealand in Test cricket. He has scored most number of test tons when batting at number 8 position.

Retirement

Vettori retired from One day Internationals and Twenty20 Internationals and stood down from the captaincy after the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup, but he was called back into the ODI team for the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy.

His final test match was as an emergency injury cover against Pakistan in November,2014. Vettori announced his retirement from all forms of international cricket following the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup.

After signing a 3 year contract, he became the head coach of Brisbane Heat, effectively ending his playing career in all forms of the game. He is also currently the head coach of the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL, and Middlesex in the T20 Blast.