Fleming learns the hard way

By Linda Pearce
From the Sunday Age, 23 November 1997

STEPHEN FLEMING would like a piece of advice for every question he has been asked about his inability to turn half-centuries into hundreds. The 24-year-old is learning as he goes and, as the youngest captain in New Zealand history, he has faced a steeper curve than most.

Not only is Fleming responsible for his own form, and a record of 16 innings past 50 that have produced just one ton, he is also charged with leading an inexperienced outfit against the world's top Test nation. In Brisbane, both team and captain went close - New Zealand to forcing a draw, and Fleming to converting another 90 into three figures - but ultimately fell short.

Yet just as the Kiwis showed enough in the first Test to briefly calm the jangled nerves of the Australian Cricket Board's bean-counters (who had feared a box-office calamity after two lead-up thrashings), it was the visitors' willingness to mix it in the verbal stoushes that also seemed to announce a new attitude. And if coach Steve Rixon has been charged with hardening the New Zealand resolve, then Fleming has been a colorful and accessible frontman.

He returns telephone messages and apologises for missing you the first time. He troops up to the radio commentary boxes at Optus Oval to oblige further interview requests. He has provided a couple of the season's more memorable quotes, involving radio static and the need to wear sunscreen. And he is happy to acknowledge critical reviews of some aspects of his on-field leadership.

Former New Zealand wicketkeeper Ian Smith, Channel Nine's guest commentator for the summer, provided one. He believes Fleming was "found out tactically" on the first day of the Brisbane Test, with his bowling changes - and particularly the use of strike bowler Chris Cairns - and fielding placements contributing to Australia wriggling out of its early troubles at 4/53.

Fleming has no problem with the criticism. "Yeah, I'd agree with that," he says. "It was a difficult day because we were in a situation before lunch that we hadn't been in; we'd wanted it but hadn't expected it, and in the fightback you get caught in a lot of mixed emotions, and I share some of the responsibility of perhaps not rotating the bowlers in a sense that we slipped back into a pattern instead of attacking enough.

"I looked at the tapes of that and there was definitely room for improvement there, and just basically (in my) reading of the game. But the flipside of that is that you can only do what you think is best, and the bowlers with the ball set the tone for the session or the situation. I just have to learn to work together with my bowlers and get an understanding. That's just the experience side of things. Which I'm really short on."

Yet Fleming has not taken long to graduate to such a senior role. As a talented junior cricketer raised by his supportive single-parent mother in Christchurch, the once-promising rugby union player had captained New Zealand's development and under-19 teams before the priority shifted to establishing a first-class career. From there, when his Canterbury skipper Lee Germon was sacked in March, Fleming was thrown straight into the position he had filled temporarily the month before.

"There were a few question marks, and I guess there still are," says Fleming, who was one of three players suspended for smoking marijuana on the tour of South Africa three years ago. "But all I have to do is to be honest to myself and to the team.

"To do this job you've got to have the respect, and respect comes from playing well on the paddock and basically having good morals and principles off the paddock. And I was very conscious of not changing as a person just to suit the captaincy. That's something I've been working really hard on."

For that reason, Fleming has stayed in the home he shares with teammate Nathan Astle rather than consciously trying to keep his distance. But other changes have been necessary. For one whose nature is to sit back and "go with the flow", he has found himself havingto adjust to adopting the occasional role of disciplinarian. "Whether that's telling off or being stern, or whatever the mood is, it's having to judge that and act on it".

Fleming says he has found it difficult to change his thinking patterns at times, to decide on the next bowling change, the next field adjustment, the next step. "I have gut feelings and I run with them. They're perhaps not always the right moves, but I'm happy with running with my gut feelings the whole time."

Yet he says the heightened off-field role has probably required the biggest adjustment. Instead of listening in on team talks and planning sessions, he has had to start making some noise himself. And there were times when the former university student - he completed two years of a secondary teaching course, majoring in physical education - wondered quite what to say.

Still, it could have been worse. Fleming could have been thrown in to lead a team of experienced players set in their ways and peeved at missing out on the top job themselves. Instead, he insists he finds no problems with authority, despite Wednesday's quip that the issue of Cairns and the new ball was a "test of wills". The problem, as three woeful performances against state teams have confirmed, is consistency of performance and depth of talent.

Then there is the matter of his own results. An attacking left-handed batsman and outstanding slips fieldsman who had taken 16 catches in the three Tests before Perth, Fleming scored his maiden Test century against England in January to temporarily silence those who keep highlighting his lack of three-figure scores.

He blames nervousness for his first few failures to convert regular half-centuries, but now points to a lack of concentration and tendency to predetermine the stroke he wants to play.

"It's a bit of everything. It does affect you, but you sort of say 'yeah, but I'm still getting 70s and 80s and that's better than getting nothing.'

"It's a good problem to have because at least I am getting starts, but it is still a problem. Perhaps you just relax a little bit, get too loose, but I think I've got a finger on that one and it's just a case now of batting, and the runs will come." And a case of playing, and the leadership experience will come. Eventually.