'I have got to make sure the team follow me' says Vettori
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Your support makes all the difference.Daniel Vettori insists he still relishes the challenge of being New Zealand captain, despite the miserable sequence of results during the tour of England.
The Kiwis were beaten 2-0 in the Test series, lost Friday's Twenty20 international and crashed to defeat in the opening NatWest one-day international. New Zealand have occasionally had the look of a side who want the two-month tour to end sooner rather than later and they held a no-holds barred meeting after losing to Paul Collingwood's side at the Riverside.
But Vettori is as keen as ever to turn around his country's fortunes ahead of the second ODI meeting in the five-match series at Edgbaston today. He said: "There has been a lot going on since I took over the captaincy with players retiring or moving into other avenues of the game. That has made it a little bit difficult but, if I am honest, this is 95percent of the team I want anyway. I am still enjoying leading the team. Of course. This is what I wanted to do for a long time. It is thoroughly challenging but it is also rewarding when things do start to to work. That's what we have to get through at the moment, to try to find a way to turn the side around. I think I am doing it with my own performance and now I've got to make sure I get the team to come with me.
"I've done the captaincy a few times now. It is an all encompassing job. It is not just a case of switching off at the end of the day and worrying about your own performance. You have to worry about everyone in the side and that includes management as well.
"It can be difficult, but that is the engrossing part of the job, that you are able to dictate a lot of what goes on in the team, and it can be rewarding when it works. When it is not working like at the moment, it is a lot more challenging, but this is another opportunity for that reward and turning it around and making us a better side."
Vettori is looking for a positive approach from the Black Caps after they were on the receiving end of Kevin Pietersen's century at Durham. He continued: "If you keep performing badly, it makes it tougher and tougher. There have been long and hard talks within the group about trying to find ways to improve.
"The talks were frank. They are the only way to get things resolved. People have to be accountable for their performances. Good sides respond to setbacks and we are lucky we will get a chance to redeem ourselves. That is the mood in the camp. We know we need to win this game in a lot of ways to keep the series alive. That is the driving motivation.
"We've got to find a way to turn things around quickly. We've still got good players in the side, probably guys who aren't in as good as form as they need to be. It is the responsibility of the senior guys to step up and lead with their performance."
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