In the midst of some often surprising objections to Daniel Vettori's escalation to a captain/selector of the New Zealand cricket team is the reason why such an appointment is appropriate.

With Vettori joining the sparsely-populated 3000 test runs and 300 test wickets club, that reason is found in his batting.

The man is a fighter. If you scroll back through Vettori's 93 test matches and 139 innings, the nascence and ascent of an all-rounder is clear; his growth from a No 10 batsman obvious. What is less clear is the fact that he has so often been the backbone of the Black Caps' batting.

Think Black Caps over the past four or five years and perhaps the main perception is one of disappointment. How many fans have felt their pulses quicken at a good Black Caps showing only to have those hopes dissolve in another eventual letdown - often from one of their well-chronicled batting collapses?

Vettori officially took over the captaincy from Stephen Fleming in 2007 but has been captaining various New Zealand teams in all forms of the game from 2006.

His bowling speaks for itself but if his batting record from that time is traversed, you begin to understand his importance to the Black Caps.

Since the beginning of 2006, Vettori has played 45 test innings with the bat. He has been top or second-top scorer 14 times. He has been our leading batsmen nearly one in three times at the crease - and that from a No 8 batsman, where he has mostly played his test cricket, usually resisting the temptation to play higher.

He is already the world record holder for runs scored from No 8 but it is his fighting qualities that impress. In test matches where New Zealand's batting has often varied only from meek to mild, Vettori has provided much of the spine; the unbent knee.

By dint of his batting position, Vettori has excelled in what have often been lost causes - the battler at the end of the line-up refusing to knuckle under; setting his jaw against the odds in a way that has shamed some of those batting higher. Jacob Oram's lamentable dismissal after a reverse sweep in the second test was a chilling example. In the first test, Vettori scored 42 in the first innings (second-top score) and 67 in the second (top scoring) to give some sort of shape to some pallid New Zealand batting against the Sri Lankan spinners at home; admittedly no easy assignment.

But he fought tooth and claw, as he so often does. If, as a selector, he can discern and employ that same quality in other New Zealand cricketers, then this observer, for one, is all for it.

Vettori will be unlikely to view many of our rising cricketers on the provincial scene - he'll barely get a game if at all - but that is what the other selectors are for.

Cricket drums beat hard when a new talent is unearthed and such is Vettori's stature in the game here that he will be able to draw accurate gauges from talent scouts, provincial coaches, colleagues and the like regarding new players.