Men of many parts
No Vettori or Hadlee, but there are still four strong contenders for the allrounder spot
Sidharth Monga
14-Sep-2009
Now we come to those rarities in international cricket, men who provide sides with balance, men who allow sides to place prolonged trust in the specialists around them. And, as is true of two on New Zealand's shortlist for this segment, the big stars, the alpha males.
John Reid and Chris Cairns were obviously the big stars of the teams they played in, the extroverts whose personalities found complete expression when playing cricket. Both could have gone on to represent New Zealand in rugby too, but fate brought them to cricket. Up against them is Bruce Taylor, who made the sort of start people dream of, scoring 105 when he batted for the first time in Tests, and taking 5 for 86 the first time he bowled.
As has been the trend worldwide, New Zealand too have struggled for allrounders since Cairns' retirement. Daniel Vettori can lay claim to being one, but as he himself considers his bowling his primary skill and batting a bonus, for the purpose of this poll he is better considered a specialist bowler. Ditto with Richard Hadlee.
The contenders
We'll be publishing an all-time New Zealand XI based on readers' votes to go with our jury's XI. To vote for your top New Zealand allrounders click here
Sidharth Monga is a staff writer at Cricinfo