How Vettori saw off India's quick men
Daniel Vettori's dogged innings of 60, off 129 balls, ensured that New Zealand sailed well past the follow-on target
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan
25-Jun-2005
Daniel Vettori's dogged innings of 60, off 129 balls, ensured
that New Zealand sailed well past the follow-on target, and more
importantly, used up valuable time, which may eventually prove
critical to the outcome of the match. Sourav Ganguly might have
missed a trick when he persisted with Zaheer Khan and L Balaji
against him, instead of relying on his spinners.
Vettori scored 19 off 70 balls (strike rate of 27) against Anil
Kumble and Harbhajan Singh. Against the seamers, his strike-rate
was almost three times as much (36 of 46 balls). Zaheer and
Balaji hardly pitched the ball up, and on an agonisingly slow
pitch, Vettori had ample time to work the ball square of the
wicket. Zaheer didn't test Vettori with a single yorker and
continued bowling short.
Length bowled by medium-pacers to Vettori
Bowler | Balls faced (Runs) | Full Length | Good length | Short of good length | Short |
Zaheer Khan | 22 (15) | 2 (0) | 18 (11) | 1 (0) | 1 (4) |
L. Balaji | 24 (21) | 5 (2) | 8 (5) | 7 (10) | 4 (4) |
Vettori was fairly comfortable against the 26 good-length balls
bowled to him, and worked the ball off the square mostly off the
back foot. Against the medium pacers, he scored 18 runs off 9
balls when he was on his back foot, and even when he showed
minimal footwork he succeeded in scoring 7 off 15 balls.
Vettori's footwork against the medium-fast bowlers Balls (Runs)
Bowler | Front foot | Back foot | Minimal footwork |
Zaheer Khan | 13 (5) | 2 (4) | 7 (6) |
L. Balaji | 8 (6) | 7 (14) | 9 (1) |
Vettori was finally dismissed by Anil Kumble and left India with
a lesser lead than they would have liked and lesser time to force
the issue.