** Fleming and Vettori to play in county cricket **
Stephen Fleming and Daniel Vettori have secured short-term contracts in English county cricket with Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire respectively. Fleming has signed an 11-week contract while Vettori will play for five weeks for Nottinghamshire. New Zealand Cricket (NZC) have given their endorsement to the pair.
Fleming had expressed a wish to play county cricket after coming back from leading New Zealand to success in the Sri Lankan tri-series last month while Vettori had earlier been in negotiations with Warwickshire.
Martin Snedden, chief executive of NZC, said he was happy for both players to have the chance to work on their games in the county environment. It is a significant step for both players as they have shown signs of being close to their best form in recent months.
After a long drought of bowling, Vettori looked to have regained the sort of touch that made him such a competitive slow bowler before suffering stress fractures in his back in 1999-00.
And Fleming had an outstanding summer, displaying the best batting form of his recent career, and his highest score in first-class cricket with 274 not out against Sri Lanka.
Snedden said: “Many international players find county cricket beneficial in terms of their development.”
Fleming who will be available from Saturday until the end of August, will have the opportunity to work on his batting without the worry of captaincy.
“I will have the opportunity to share my knowledge and experience with the coach and captain but my primary job for Yorkshire will be to score runs and take catches,” Fleming said.
"Right now I feel I’m going through a growth spurt in terms of my batting development and I want to take every opportunity to consolidate this.
“There are still things I want to try and areas of my game I want to advance and during my time with Yorkshire I will have the forum to do this exclusively.”
Fleming leaves for England tomorrow.
Vettori, will temporarily take the place of Australian spinner Stuart MacGill in the Nottinghamshire team. MacGill will be appearing in Australia’s Tests in Darwin and Cairns.
Vettori said he was looking forward to the experience.
“I’m excited about my first taste of county cricket and look forward to a change of environment,” he said. "The workload will also benefit me.
“When I start with Nottinghamshire I will have had a six-week break since the end of the Sri Lankan tour and I will then have another break of over a month at the conclusion of my contract before our tour of India.”
Vettori leaves for England in the last week of June and returns to New Zealand in the first week of August.
© CricInfo