KEY POINTS:
A short-term with Hampshire could push Daniel Vettori close to being a million-dollar cricketer for 2008, joining the exiled Shane Bond as the only seven-figured New Zealanders.
Vettori is tipped to join the English county at the end of the New Zealand tour as the southern county cast
their net for a replacement for the incomparable Shane Warne.
Vettori, who will pick up the No 1-ranked central contract from Shane Bond, stands to earn $400,000 from New Zealand Cricket this season in retainer, match fees and captaincy allowances.
His pro rata deal with the Indian Premier League will see him net a little less than $300,000 (at the astonishing rate of about $2850 per delivery). Add to that a nice little contract with an English county, and endorsements such as his deal with Gray-Nicholls, and you have a man who will not be troubling his bank for an overdraft.
Of course, his Hampshire contract will be dependent on a number of issues, not least whether he, and New Zealand Cricket, feel he needs a break after a hectic year of cricket. With the added burden of captaining his country, Vettori might opt for a break before the Champions Trophy, still scheduled for Pakistan in September.
However, Hampshire chairman Rod Bransgrove has made it clear he would like to land Vettori, the world's No 1-ranked one-day international bowler and No 2-ranked test allrounder behind South African great Jacques Kallis.
"Obviously, Daniel Vettori is a name that we've considered," he told a local newspaper.
"We're already talking to one or two people and we are looking for an effective spin bowler for the latter part of the season. Vettori will have played an awful lot of cricket by the time we'd be looking at him, but nonetheless he is certainly someone we will be looking at."
Bond received registration to take up his short-term deal with Hampshire only last week. The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) held a meeting on Thursday which approved the registration after behind-the-scenes talks between Hampshire and NZC.
With Bond no longer tied to NZC because of his Indian Cricket League commitments, he could not get the no-objection certificate required by the ECB before they would register players.
The potential legal minefield has been averted for the time being.
Bond has joined Hampshire for their first competitive match of the season against Sussex this week and will turn out up to the beginning of June, when Australian Shane Watson returns.
Vettori is currently in India preparing for the inaugural IPL with his Delhi Daredevils team, a side that also includes Australian Glenn McGrath and recent triple centurion Virender Sehwag.
The tournament begins when Bangalore meet Brendon McCullum's Kolkata on Friday.