Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Daniel Vettori claims 300th Test wicket

Daniel Vettori became the eighth player and first left-arm bowler in account to take 300 wickets and score 3000 test runs as he got two wickets Sri Lanka on the first day of the second test of their enduring series.

With this new record, Vettori has become one of the supreme all rounders of all time, currently standing at the eight place, behind Chaminda Vaas, Imran Khan, Ian Botham, Shaun Pollock, Sir Richard Hadlee, India's Kapil Dev and table topper Shane Warne, who has scored 3154 runs and taken 708 wickets in 145 matches.

While Vettori may not exceed Warne's wickets tally, he will surely go beyond Kapil Dev's tally of 5248 runs in the years to come. Vettori, who was eager to claim his 300th wicket, brought himself on in the 11th over of the innings. He first took out Tharanga Paranavitana who was caught at slip by Ross Taylor. Two balls after that Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakkara had achieved his half century; Vettori claimed his 300th wicket as the batsman shattered straight to the sweeper.

Vettori made his first appearance against England back in 1997 when he was just 18 years old. Till date he is the youngest New Zealand player to debut in Tests and has metamorphosed on his own to become the main strike bowler for his side. He is now the second most flourishing bowler for New Zealand, second only to the great Sir Richard Hadlee.

Vettori has scored three centuries in tests. Vettori scored his 1,000th run at an average of 17.24 but speed up to 42.52 when he reached the 2,000 run mark as he scored the runs in just 22 matches. As of March 2009, Vettori's average batting at number 8 was 45.91 (for Tests) and is currently the best average of all time for a player batting at number 8.

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