Bahnz
Hall of Fame Member
Yeah agree with this sentiment. Vettori basically peaked as an attacking bowler in 2000, before his back injury forced him to remodel his action. After that, he never really turned the ball as much and bowled a much flatter trajectory. Since then, he's averaged over 42 (exc. zimbang).Without checking, you're probably right that Vettori's later numbers with the bat are better than Cairns'. But I agree with everyone here selecting Cairns instead.
In general both started as bowlers and their bowling effectiveness decreased as their batting improved. However I think there was more of an overlap of good batting and good bowling for Cairns (around what, 1999-2001?) than for Vettori, who's never had a period where he's been a particularly good bowler and batsman at the same time. So Cairns at his peak >> Vettori at his peak, and I guess for an All-Time team you assume the players are at their peak.
Cairns was basically an awesome batsman from New Zealand's 1998 series v India onwards, but was still handy as early as the mid 1990's. Beginning with Pakistan's one-off test v NZ in 1995, Cairns averaged nearly 37 with the bat and 27 with the ball.