Top 5 orthodox left-arm spinners of all time

#4 Daniel Vettori

Vettori's impeccable control helped him adapt to the seam-friendly pitches in New Zealand

When the focus shifts towards the great spinners of the post millennial era, the likes of Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan and Anil Kumble invariably hog the attention. After all, they had both longevity and productivity. As he so often did to entrap opposition batsmen, Daniel Vettori slips by unnoticed. One of the most underrated cricketers of his generation, the affable all-rounder contributed immensely to New Zealand's fortunes by chipping in with valuable performances on a wide variety of pitches.

With a combined 705 wickets from 442 matches across all three formats of the game, Vettori single-handedly led New Zealand's spin department right throughout his stellar career. Only four spinners have picked up more international wickets than him and all of them were right-armers. Despite having had to operate mostly on seam-friendly surfaces in New Zealand, the left-arm spinner created enormous pressure with his impeccable control and managed to procure wickets aplenty by adhering to the basics.

Overall Career

Tests - 362 wickets from 113 matches at an average of 34.36 and strike-rate of 79.5 with 20 five-wicket hauls and 3 ten-wicket hauls

ODIs - 305 wickets from 295 matches at an average of 31.71 and economy-rate of 4.12 with 2 five-wicket hauls

T20Is - 38 wickets from 34 matches at an average of 19.68 and economy-rate of 5.70