Great write-up and nice hat-tip to Beyond Cow Corner's excellent analysis.
It feels to me like the same ability to work among the madness surrounding MS Dhoni is going to be useful when navigating that similar intensity of madness surrounding English red ball cricket.
Good piece, but I’d slightly disagree on two fronts: 1) Fleming was a very good batsman who underachieved and in form he was one of the most elegant batsmen on the circuit, and 2) he built a very good NZ side not just an OK one. They won a test series in England, in the West Indies (first time for NZ I think), the Champions Trophy and were a very high class ODI outfit that went toe to toe with anyone even when Australia were incredible and SL and SA had probably their best ever sides. Nathan Astle isn’t mentioned but he was a key part of all that. Cairns and Vettori were indeed excellent, not just OK. The two of them and Fleming were good enough to make the World XI that went to Australia in the early 2000s. So not simply overachieving journeymen.
My overall point being that I agree Fleming is resourceful but it is possible to put too fine a point on it.
If i had a choice of a few players having an relative injury free career. It would be Simon Jones and Shane Bond.
Brilliant article and analysis.
Great write-up and nice hat-tip to Beyond Cow Corner's excellent analysis.
It feels to me like the same ability to work among the madness surrounding MS Dhoni is going to be useful when navigating that similar intensity of madness surrounding English red ball cricket.
Good piece, but I’d slightly disagree on two fronts: 1) Fleming was a very good batsman who underachieved and in form he was one of the most elegant batsmen on the circuit, and 2) he built a very good NZ side not just an OK one. They won a test series in England, in the West Indies (first time for NZ I think), the Champions Trophy and were a very high class ODI outfit that went toe to toe with anyone even when Australia were incredible and SL and SA had probably their best ever sides. Nathan Astle isn’t mentioned but he was a key part of all that. Cairns and Vettori were indeed excellent, not just OK. The two of them and Fleming were good enough to make the World XI that went to Australia in the early 2000s. So not simply overachieving journeymen.
My overall point being that I agree Fleming is resourceful but it is possible to put too fine a point on it.