Was just watching the Sri Lanka-New Zealand series (because someone should). My heart feels for Daniel Vettori, who may not be as brilliant as Shane Warne or Muralitharan, but deserves at least a better team to captain than the lot he currently has.
Take a look at the series stats: Vettori took the second highest number of wickets (after Murali and before latest spin sensation Herath), and he scored the fourth most runs (the only Kiwi in the top 5).
In fact, watching him score 140 runs in the 2nd innings put me in mind of his counterpart, Kumar Sangakarra, who valiantly tried to stave off defeat against the Australia in 2007 with a brilliant 192, most of them made with tail-enders. You had the sense that this man was bigger than all of his colleagues put together.
(Interestingly, the Australians won that game with the same margin as the Sri Lankans did in this one.)
At that point, Sri Lanka was at the start of its transition, with a weak batting line-up and a retiring bowling one. Now, they’re the second in the world. The hope is that Vettori, the suffering martyr of New Zealand cricket, will be able to cobble together Taylor, Oram and Guptill into a competitive team at some point, but I’m not holding my breath.