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Scyld Berry feels that Vettori's 'shoot-out' with Tufnell may decide the third Test

If New Zealand are to win at Old Trafford, and reduce England from the status of laughing-stock to national derision, their chief instrument will surely be Daniel Vettori. Young shoulders, long hair, student-style glasses. And a wise old head.

England encountered Vettori for the first time in the winter of 1996-97. Aged 17, and in his home town of Hamilton, he made his first-class debut against England for Northern Districts as their third-choice left-arm spinner, and picked up Nasser Hussain as his maiden wicket in a very tidy spell. Straight into the Test side he went, New Zealand's youngest ever Test cricketer at 18 years 10 days, and he picked up Hussain again for his maiden Test wicket as England won by an innings in Wellington after New Zealand had stuck their neck in the noose by batting first on a damp seamer.

For his next trick Vettori scored 54 runs and took five for 110 in the final Test when England just squeezed home thanks to Mike Atherton's second best match. With unwavering accuracy Vettori bowled 69 overs, but without quite the variety and penetration to finish off England and level the series (he had no spinner at the other end to help him, either). If Atherton was the man of that match at Christchurch, Vettori was the boy of it.

At this juncture most prodigies, or at any rate most English cricket prodigies, would go off the rails, intoxicated by their own publicity if not other substances, and take years to return if not disappear altogether. Not Vettori, though, with that wise old head and steady bespectacled gaze (he cannot wear lenses because of an accident when he was knocked off his bike).

Two-and-a-half years on he has steadily progressed to become as good as any left-arm orthodox spinner in the international game: the equal of Phil Tufnell, in other words, as there are not any others of note around (better endowed countries prefer the extra penetration of a wrist-spinner). Old Trafford will therefore offer the two men a shoot-out for the title of the world's best of their type.

Nature and nurture have caringly combined to keep Vettori on his steady course. His grandfather came to New Zealand from the Dolomites and worked with an immigrant's energy to establish his family. His father works for Anchor, who dominate the Waikato's dairy-producing countryside around Hamilton: in fact he is big in butter, so to speak, as the company's finance director. At Hamilton's leading school Daniel was always captain of his football and cricket teams, without being aloof from the lads or resented.

When catapulted into Test cricket he was about to go to university in Hamilton to study pharmacy, but if you were an 18-year-old given the choice between going to university and being paid to tour Australia, which would you choose? ``I kept going on tour after tour, and I can't see that I'll be able to take up the course in the next couple of years,'' he says. ``But it would be a shame not to go to university some time.''

In his fourth Test, by taking nine for 130 against Sri Lanka, he out-bowled Muttiah Muralitharan to give New Zealand their first series win for four years. In his 14th Test he reached his 50th Test wicket, easily the youngest to do so at 19, after which his only barren period came in a series against South Africa on flat home pitches. The historical context against which Vettori has to labour is that only one New Zealand spinner has taken 100 Test wickets, the off-breaker John Bracewell.

Without a past-master to coach him, Vettori has had to learn those variations to accompany his stock spinner and arm-ball. And at Lord's he demonstrated how he could now use the width of the crease, adjust his degree of turn and vary his trajectory.

``I've just learnt from bowling and from watching other bowlers around the world, especially on television, and a lot of it has come from the one-day game. In one-day cricket it has to be a different ball every time, and while I don't enjoy it as much as Test cricket you can take something from that.''

He has a particular admiration for Pakistan's Saqlain Mushtaq, who uses his fingers to bowl offbreaks and his wrist to bowl top-spinners. ``I'd love to do what Saqlain does but I've tried it in the nets and can't do it yet.'' More realistic ambitions for the moment are 100 Test wickets and to play 100 Tests, which no New Zealander has yet done, by which time he will no doubt be captain.

His record at present runs parallel to Tufnell's as he has 63 wickets from 21 Tests against Tufnell's 107 from 36, while both average 34 per wicket. The differences are that Vettori is slower, usually 48 mph by the speedometer, and has a higher trajectory which tempts the straight-drive for six, while Tufnell bends forwards in the crease and pushes it through more.

Another difference is that Vettori can bat (502 Test runs at 17) and since a fruitless Edgbaston Test has worked the ball around with irritating ease, culminating in his vital 50 at Lord's and a maiden hundred at Leicester. ``We haven't played a full-strength county side yet and it's helped our batting by giving us time in the middle.''

``People back home were pretty thrilled about our Test win and said what a great week it was for New Zealand sport after the All Blacks won as well. The old players have said some nice things too, like John Wright sent us a telegram and Richard Hadlee was complimentary.

``But the main thing is that we're learning to keep our foot on the opposition's throat. This team has played together for 2.5 years and we've let winning situations go before, but now we know what to do, which is an awareness of when the moment comes.'' A second win for New Zealand at Old Trafford and it will be England who need the pharmacy.