Player Profile(#38)...Daniel Vettori (New Zealand)

Daniel Luca Vettori (born 27 January 1979, Auckland, New Zealand), but brought up in Hamilton attending Marian School and later St Paul's Collegiate School, is a cricketer who is the current captain of the New Zealand cricket team. When available he plays provincial cricket for Northern Districts, and is also an international member of Indian Premier League team the Delhi DareDevils. He is the youngest player to have represented New Zealand in Test cricket, having made his debut in 1996/1997 at the age of 18. Vettori is a slow left-arm orthodox spinner, but he is known for his flight and guile rather than prodigious turn or pinpoint accuracy.

International career:
Vettori made his test debut at Wellington for New Zealand against England on 6 February 1997. His first Test wicket was Nasser Hussain. Three weeks earlier he had made his first class debut, against the touring English side and again his maiden wicket was Hussain. His ODI debut came a month later against Sri Lanka at Christchurch on March 25th 1997.

His career was in jeopardy in 2000 with a back injury, but he recovered to play a major role in New Zealand's victory in the 2004 Tri-Series with England and the West Indies in England.

Vettori was selected in the final squad for the World XI Super Series against Australia and played in all 3 ODIs and the Super Test.

As of 10 March 2008 Vettori was ranked 1st on the ICC Player Rankings for One Day bowlers and ranked 2nd and 10th for Test and One Day all-rounders respectively.

Vettori has also played for Hamilton in the Hawke Cup.

Captaincy:
Prior to becoming captain on a permanent basis in 2007 Vettori had captained the Black Caps in ODI cricket on occasions such as when regular captain, Stephen Fleming, was unable to. As of the end of 2006 he had led New Zealand in 11 games, winning 8 of them.

He captained New Zealand at the inaugural Twenty20 World Championship in South Africa. Subsequently, it was announced that Vettori would captain the Black Caps in all forms of the game, i.e. captain Twenty20, ODI and the Test teams. Initially, it he was announced to only be captain of the former two.

Vettori's captaincy has had a rocky start, losing a Test series in England first up. Vettori also attracted some criticism in the following ODI series, when following a controversial run out, he engaged in angry shouting and jumping up and down from the balcony at Lord's Cricket Ground. He then refused to shake hands with the England team after the match. Not only did this contrast with Fleming's more languid style, some felt such behaviour was hypocritical given Daniel Vettori's support for team mate Brendon McCullum the infamous running out of Muttiah Muralitharan in similar circumstances.

Batting:
Vettori has matured into a useful lower-order batsman having scored 2,000 Test runs, including two centuries (137* against Pakistan in 2003 and 127 against Zimbabwe in 2005), as well as several half-centuries. Although it took Vettori 47 Tests to score his first 1,000 runs at an average of 17.24, the second thousand took him just 22 Tests at a rate of 42.52 per innings. Vettori's average batting at number 8 is 37.11 (for Tests) and is currently the best average of all time for a player batting there. His average at number ten is 3rd best of all time in ODIs.

In December 2006, Vettori began establishing himself as more of an all-rounder, batting at number 5 for New Zealand in the one-day series against Sri Lanka.

Personal life:
Vettori confirmed plans to marry fiance Mary O'Carroll and move to Auckland sometime in the winter of 2007. He has continued playing for the Northern Districts Knights. At the Wellington cricket ground The Basin in January 2008 he was seen wearing a wedding ring, so it is assumed that they are now married.

Links to more information on Daniel Vettori:

Vettori for captain

Changing of the guard for Black Caps | BLACK CAPS | ONE SPORT | tvnz.co.nz

Vettori to marry girlfriend, move to Auckland

Cricinfo.com Profile on Daniel Vettori





*Acknowledgements to Wikipedia.org and owners of pictures and videos used.

Player Profile(#27)...Tim Southee (New Zealand)

Timothy Grant Southee (born 11 December 1988 in Whangarei, New Zealand) is a New Zealand cricketer. He is a right-arm fast-medium bowler who plays international cricket for New Zealand and State Championship cricket for Northern Districts and plays for Northland in the Hawke Cup. He made his first-class debut on 19 February 2007 at the age of eighteen.

After an impressive start to his career with Northern Districts, Southee was picked to play for a New Zealand side in a Twenty20 match against a Bangladesh side on December 23, 2007. The game was a charity match for cyclone relief in Bangladesh.

On 30 January 2008, Southee was named in the New Zealand squad for two Twenty20 International games and three One Day International games against England. New Zealand Cricket Selection Manager, Sir Richard Hadlee said:

"Why delay producing a player of some talent? Perhaps I could compare him with Brendon McCullum when he started (in 2002) - he had a lot of potential. It might take a lot of time for Tim to find his feet but why wait two or three years when someone is in a special category? The feed back we're getting is that this guy has got it. "He runs in relatively straight, he gets through his action nicely and he moves the ball, particularly away from the batsman."

He made his official international debut on 5 February 2008 in the first Twenty20 match. In the second match, Southee was New Zealand's best bowler with figures of 2/22 from four overs.

Southee then traveled to Malaysia to play in the 2008 Under-19 Cricket World Cup, where he finished as Player-of-the-Tournament after taking 17 wickets at 6.64 with an economy rate of 2.52 runs per over.

After an injury ruled Kyle Mills out of the third Test match of England's tour, Southee was picked to make his Test match debut on 22 March 2008 at Napier. He had an immediate impact in the first day's play, dismissing Michael Vaughan and Andrew Strauss in his second and third overs, and then later claiming the wicket of Kevin Pietersen. On the second day's play he took the two wickets needed to complete a debut five-wicket haul, finishing with 5-55. During New Zealand's second innings against England, whilst chasing an improbable target of 553, Southee launched an attack on the England bowlers hitting nine sixes and four fours, with his debut fifty coming off twenty-nine balls. The fifty was the fastest in New Zealand test history, replacing Ian Smith's previous record of thirty four balls. He eventually finished on 77* from 40 balls. Only four other test cricketers have hit more sixes in an innings, Wally Hammond, Nathan Astle, Matthew Hayden and Wasim Akram.

See more info on the talented Tim Southee by right clicking HERE

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*Acknowledgements to Wikipedia org and others.

Player Profile(#19)...Jacob Oram(New Zealand)

Jacob David Philip Oram (born 28 July 1978, Palmerston North, Manawatu, New Zealand) is a New Zealand cricketer. He is a big hitting left-handed batsman and a right-arm fast-medium bowler. Because of his abilities with both bat and ball, he is a regular fixture in the current New Zealand test and one day sides. He usually bats around 6 or 7 for New Zealand. Oram's bowling has been more successful in the shorter format: he has reached as high as 5 in the ICC ODI Player Rankings as a bowler. Standing at 1.98m (6ft 6 in), he was a schoolboy representative as a soccer goalkeeper. He has also played for Manawatu in the Hawke Cup.

He plays for the Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League.

More details about his career statistics and everything else can be found by right clicking HERE

Here is a brilliant example of his hard hitting and punishing batting --->>