Cricket: Vettori a glutton for punishment

Daniel Vettori

Call him a masochist but Daniel Vettori can't enough of the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy cricket series.

Australia have beaten New Zealand in 13 of their last 14 one-day internationals yet Black Caps captain Vettori said the annual series introduced last year already holds a crucial place on the calendar.

While Australian counterpart Ricky Ponting supported the three-match series, he wondered whether packed scheduling would allow room for it to always be played.

Vettori hoped so, believing it was invaluable to test themselves regularly against the team inevitably at or near the top of the international tree.

"We like the fact that we get to play Australia every year, whereas in the past it's been every four years and sometimes even longer than that," Vettori said.

"We have a chance to test ourselves against the best and the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy has a lot of meaning for us."

Ponting said the series "has got a future" but programming would be an ongoing issue.

This year it is tightly squeezed between Australian home test series against the West Indies and South Africa, something Ponting has already said was not ideal.

"The timing thing of it is probably the most difficult thing to fit in. It's a very busy time of the year for us and for New Zealand as well," Ponting said.

"That's the big issue... but if we can find the right times to play it we're more than happy to see it go on."

That happiness would intensify if every win was as easy as Saturday's 147-run opener at Auckland on Saturday.

New Zealand's best chance of success in the three-match series may be in tonight's match at Westpac Stadium here, with a slow pitch sure to favour the hosts' slower bowlers and reduce the potency of Australian paceman Brett Lee.

"Growing up in Australia on bouncier wickets you tend to play a lot more fast bowling than you do spin bowling," Ponting said.

"But I'd like to think our blokes have been pretty successful in most conditions around the world against most attacks and most bowlers. Our record in one-day cricket away from home would probably be as good as it is at home."

Ponting acknowledged that one of his team's shortcomings in Auckland was getting bogged down against the spin of Vettori and medium pace of Scott Styris.

"There was that period that we spoke about. Dan's a quality bowler, there's no doubt about that. I wasn't so worried about Styris the other night. He got two for 40-odd and New Zealand would have been happy with those figures from him, but I think we can combat him a bit better."

Vettori believed the combination of he and Styris now formed an important part of New Zealand's effort in the field.

"Both of us have bowled pretty well for a long time now and we've done that job in the 20th-40th over stage and it's something I suppose we can rely on," he said.

"We probably don't want to get too over-reliant on it but it is something we've done well.

"Our 10-20 overs is probably the area we really want to get right so when me and Scott do come in in that period of time we can continue to attack and it's not a case of dragging everything back."

Nathan Astle, even slower than Styris, was likely to be slotted into Vettori's bowling mix tonight.

New Zealand last night named the same 12 from the Eden Park thumping, with James Marshall favoured to again play as the super sub.

Teams:

New Zealand (from): Daniel Vettori (captain), Nathan Astle, Lou Vincent, Hamish Marshall, James Marshall, Scott Styris, Craig McMillan, Chris Cairns, Jacob Oram, Brendon McCullum, James Franklin, Kyle Mills.

Australia (from): Ricky Ponting (captain), Adam Gilchrist, Simon Katich, Brad Hodge, Andrew Symonds, Michael Clarke, Michael Hussey, Cameron White, Brad Hogg, Brett Lee, Stuart Clark, Nathan Bracken, Mick Lewis.

- NZPA