5 Kiwi cricketers who had forgettable debuts but went on to have high-flying careers

#4 Daniel Vettori

If women of this planet were asked to vote for their favourite cricketer, Daniel Luca Vettori would emerge as the winner nine out of ten times. Such was the following Vettori had among females during his playing days. But being popular with the fair sex was not the only quality this bespectacled cricketer from Auckland possessed.

He was equally famous for making batsmen dance on his slow left arm magic. In a career spanning 17 years (1997-2014) and 113 Tests, Dan scalped 362 victims at an average of 34.36. He finished second on the list of most number of wickets for New Zealand behind the great Sir Richard Hadlee.

Dan was only 18 when he made his Test debut against England in Wellington on February 6, 1997. In a Test that the visitors won by an innings and 68 runs, Vettori returned unimpressive figures of 2/98 from 34.3 overs.

However, the early failure only strengthened the youngster’s resolve as he went on to establish himself as one of world’s premier left-arm tweakers of all time. In the later stage of his career, Vettori turned into a more than handy lower-order batsman. In fact, there was a stage when he batted as high as at number six in Tests. He signed off his career with 4531 Test runs at 30, including six centuries.