With Stephen Fleming's retirement now complete, Vettori will lead the Black Caps to England later this month without the experience of New Zealand's longest-serving test and one-day captain close at hand.
A 79-test veteran, Vettori has been in charge since September last year but said his early days in the captaincy role have, at times, been difficult.
The disappointing recent home test series loss to England, which could so easily have gone the other way, has only added to the spin bowler's frustrations.
‘‘It's [captaincy] enjoyable from the fact that you get to dictate a lot of what's going on and get to see the game and act it out how you see fit.
‘‘But it's also quite tiring and it can be frustrating at times.
‘‘It's a 24-7 job, so that makes it a little bit harder than being just a player in a team where you can concentrate on your own performance and maybe move on after a result.
‘‘I've found I've tended to carry it [match losses] a little bit and care about it a lot. It's new territory for me, full-time captaincy, but overall I am enjoying it.''
It is not just captaincy that is new to Vettori.
The 29-year-old was married nine months ago, but he prefers to keep his private life just that.
‘‘Let's leave it at that,'' he said when asked about his wife.
Vettori was in Dunedin yesterday playing backyard cricket at Sawyers Bay School.
The school was one of six throughout New Zealand which won the chance to play cricket with Vettori as part of a Visique Optometrists campaign to raise awareness of the ultra-violet radiation risk to children's eyesight.
Vettori said the recent test series loss to England continued to bug him, particularly after his side's convincing first test win.
‘‘While everyone was pretty disappointed with the outcome, they were three pretty hard-fought tests all into the fifth day. We'll look back with a sense of frustration about not winning it, but we can also appreciate some great cricket was played.
‘‘The New Zealand public got behind it, not so much in crowd numbers, but the general sentiment around the country was that test cricket was back in vogue.''
Vettori said the series loss essentially amounted to the Black Caps being out-gunned in two sessions, one in each of the second and third tests.
‘‘It's as simple as that . . but that's test cricket. If you are not competing every single ball in every session then you can end up losing a test match. Unfortunately that's what we did.''
New Zealand's brittle top order batting was seen as the biggest concern, particularly with Fleming, who was among the leading series averages with 49.5, no longer available. Opener Jamie How showed some ability with a series average of 33.50 but fellow opener Matthew Bell (19.50) and Mathew Sinclair (11.83) at four offered little resistance.
Vettori said it was an area of the Black Caps' game that needed to be quickly remedied.
‘‘Of course it's a concern. You want your top order to be as strong as possible. I think we've got some good players there. It's just a matter of turning that potential into runs and that's what we've struggled with for a long time, unfortunately.
‘‘Jamie How is a really good player and can be a strong player for us for a long time. The rest of the guys who fill up those top order positions need to do a job for us because then it enables the rest of the team to flourish.''
Vettori is under no illusions how difficult it will be to turn the tables on England on its home soil but he continues to retain faith in his team's ability.
‘‘Their conditions are similar to ours but they're confident in those conditions and have performed pretty well in them For us to go there and upset them is going to be a huge effort but I still back our side to do it in whatever conditions we face.''
