Growing up in Taiwan, a baseball nation, we moved to NZ in 1996/1997, cricket was the only sport me and dad can relate to. Daniel Vettori is the stand-out as he's a skinny, nerdy, down to earth kid with glasses, possibly the only international cricketer wearing glasses in the last 2 decades.
He injured himself seriously playing for ND after diving in the boundary, his career in trouble, then he made his return, and batted with Chris Harris time after time to save the game in the 97/98 VB series when our top/middle order was useless. Must be all the batting practice he got in the middle with Harry, Dan became an awesome batsman, scoring a ton for ND, then scoring his maiden test century shortly after.
He became the new Harry, cutting and pulling in the mid-2000s and helping NZ competing, even beating AUS in the Chappel-Hadlee series chasing 340+ total in consecutive games. His bowling became so good that every time I watch him play, he gets Andrew Symonds and Damien Martin out for lbw in consecutive overs and threathen the Aussies. While the media was mocking the Black Caps, their consensus was Dan would be the only player good enough to play for AUS. Indeed, he got picked for the World XI against AUS, and he put on a MVP performance for them, while the other superstars just took the pay cheque and gave a half-hearted performance.
Then I stopped watching cricket, but I know he took over from Fleming, his side was horrible in Bangladesh but he took NZ to the semi-finals in 2011 WC. Now he returned with his class against SL in the opening game to halt their chase, stopped the flow of AUS runs at Eden Park, took his 300th wicket, grabbed a memorable one handed catch in the quarter finals, and gave us one last look at his special cut through gully to set up Elliot for the semi-final win.
Daniel Vettori is the sportsman I grow up watching, and his retirement makes me realize we cannot take these icons for granted. He showed with determination, one's career can be glorious and memorable, and current, upcoming players and kids should look up to his career, and appreciate their opportunities and make the most of it, and us fans should cherish good hard working team and individual we've got, support them if we can, and give our lives a best shot and provide great memories for our family and our love ones.
Thank you Daniel Vettori, and I look forward to seeing you coaching our national side one day.