Fleming to retire after England series

[Sovik]

Stephen Fleming, New Zealand's most-capped player, has announced he will retire from Test cricket at the end of the upcoming home series against England. Fleming said it was better for his family if he quit the game ahead of the return tour of England in May and June.

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[Bancan]

The retirement flu is going around

[nzfan]

Being a New Zealander having no bearing on this comment, he has to be one of the best captains ever in world cricket, we have 4 million people(98,000 cricket players nationwide apparently), there should be no way that we should be able to compete with anyone but the west indies or ZImbabwe, but he managed to do it

[sandpiper]

Fleming is a great top order batsman. He could have easily crossed the 10,000 aggregate mark in one-day internationals if he were around for a while. I will never forget his hundred against Australia in Melbourne 1998 and 134* against South Africa in World Cup 2003 (Johannesburgh). Most importantly he got a great gentle personality among other comtemporary skippers.

hats off to Flemo

[Buddhika_s]

Originally Posted by nzfan
Being a New Zealander having no bearing on this comment, he has to be one of the best captains ever in world cricket, we have 4 million people(98,000 cricket players nationwide apparently), there should be no way that we should be able to compete with anyone but the west indies or ZImbabwe, but he managed to do it

He Never won a Test against Australia or a Series against South Africa or Pakistan.
He never made a world cup final.
He has the second worst conversion rate of 50's to 100's in Test History.
He has a 0-9 record against Australia
He has a 2-10 record against South Africa
He has a 2-5 record against Pakistan
He has a 3-8 record against Sri Lanka

Not have anything against him. I think he's a wonderful gifted player who had everything. Just trying to differentiate between a good player and a great captain.

[tonoy]

Originally Posted by Buddhika_s
He Never won a Test against Australia or a Series against South Africa or Pakistan.
He never made a world cup final.
He has the second worst conversion rate of 50's to 100's in Test History.
He has a 0-9 record against Australia
He has a 2-10 record against South Africa
He has a 2-5 record against Pakistan
He has a 3-8 record against Sri Lanka

Not have anything against him. I think he's a wonderful gifted player who had everything. Just trying to differentiate between a good player and a great captain.

ouch that was cold. lol. Let him retire on a high please.

[BD-Shardul]

To become a great captain you need to have a great team.

[nzfan]

buddika i don't think you understand what fleming had to deal with as a captain, we do not have the superstars like other countries we win because of a good all round performance, he had to deal with the limitations of no batsmen with averages over 40 , He is a great captain. Even led Nottinghamshire to the county championship once. I would hate to see Jayawardnes stats if he had to captain our team lol, would be an utter joke.

http://content-nz.cricinfo.com/newze...ry/336631.html

read that before commenting please

[mshakir56]

He will surely be missed as one of the greatest captains !

[al-Sagar]

he was the only captain, during his team there was never the name of another player been rumoured as the next captain.

never was a doubt or thought of his replacement captain

[Surfer]

Originally Posted by Buddhika_s
He Never won a Test against Australia or a Series against South Africa or Pakistan.
He never made a world cup final.
He has the second worst conversion rate of 50's to 100's in Test History.
He has a 0-9 record against Australia
He has a 2-10 record against South Africa
He has a 2-5 record against Pakistan
He has a 3-8 record against Sri Lanka

Not have anything against him. I think he's a wonderful gifted player who had everything. Just trying to differentiate between a good player and a great captain.

I am afraid my definition of a good captain is very different from yours. A good captain is one who can marshal his resources very well. If you ask me to produce a list of good captains, one of the names would be Tatenda Taibu. He hasnt won many matches and does not have an impressive record during his tenure. But he shows amazing talent in handling whatever resources he has got. Thats good captaincy but he is and will always remain far away from winning a world cup because his team is just not good enough.

Is Fleming a great captain? To me, he is one of the finest. The characteristics of a good captain shows from how his team progressed. New Zealand has progressed a great deal under Fleming's captaincy. He has given tough challenges to teams like Australia, India and SA. With the very limited resources he has got, he has prepared a fighting unit that always plays like a team.

[Slater582]

I recall watching the last Test of the '99 series between England & New Zealand at the Oval. The conditions were perfect for bowling. Caddick struck Fleming on the chest with a very quick ball that reared off the pitch, causing the batter a lot of pain. A lot of players would've gone off but he soldiered on & made 66. Allowed New Zealand to make 236, England replied with 153...NZ in their second innings made 162...England were all out for 162, and New Zealand won their second series in England.

Great captain and deserves to average over 40 with the bat. I bet he makes some big runs against England this series.

[BD-Shardul]

To me the greatest ever captain is Pakistan's Inzamaul Huq. Next is Ponting. I agree with Mr. Surfer's condition to be good captain. I would like to add the following one:

Leading from front.

[Buddhika_s]

ok ok Flemming is greatest ever... hope everyone is happy.

Forgot to include that Flemming was Vaas's bunny.

And NZ wishes they had Jayawardena but nonetheless they'd still suck bad.

[Tigers_eye]

Captain with his performance and encouragement makes the team better is a great leader. Fleming was all that and some. As nzfan has said with so less resource competing against Australia is simply amazing. Just the 3-0 whitewash says more than anything.

However, I think his retirement has more to do with IPL than actual family matters.

[nzfan]

i actually think his retirement has to do with captaincy, he retired from one day captain but not test, but the New Zealand cricket board dropped him as the test captain as well. And since he had been captain for so long, he was in a posiiton he didnt know how to cope with.

[akabir77]

Originally Posted by BD-Shardul
To me the greatest ever captain is Pakistan's Inzamaul Huq. Next is Ponting. I agree with Mr. Surfer's condition to be good captain. I would like to add the following one:

Leading from front.

I guess you never saw imran khan in action...

I rate Flemming in my top 10 captains

[Xavier]

Originally Posted by Buddhika_s
He has a 0-9 record against Australia

That's ok but he led New Zealand to a brilliant 0-0 draw in a Test series in Australia in 2001:
http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/en...ies/60714.html

since then New Zealand have lost Richardson, Parore, Cairns, Astle and now Bond and Fleming... that's tough!

[Rabz]

Personally, i rate Fleming not only as one of the greatest captains but also a great minds of cricketing brains.

His records probably were not that shining bright, but he made the most of what he had. He lead a team of "bunch of good players" to be competitive against the likes of Aus,Ind and SA.

Cricket will miss another of its finest sons.

[Sovik]

he is playing his last test innings. NZ still needs 383 runs with 9 wickets in hand

[sandpiper]

How come it is the last innings ? They got another test in Napier

Originally Posted by sovik
he is playing his last test innings. NZ still needs 383 runs with 9 wickets in hand

[Sovik]

Originally Posted by sandpiper
How come it is the last innings ? They got another test in Napier

my bad, i thought they were playing only 2 tests series.