Ask Stephen Fleming if his next assignment could be India coach now that Duncan Fletcher would be leaving and he steps back and laughs aloud. It’s a naughty question, he tells you smilingly, but actually, he has been laughing all evening, playing barefoot cricket in the most picturesque mounds of New Zealand, the place where one Mr Peter Jackson decided to descend one fine day and give the world lord of the Rings and those Hobbits who came in with all the bigness of small moments.
Of course, Fleming at a 6 plus height is too much of a highrise in Hobbit land especially where the Hobbit cricket ground is smaller than your home splash pool. But amid sips of middle earth beverages, Fleming is not minding the odd singularity.
He is more intent on captaining the yellow team and making those 15 runs which are one too many for cricketing Hobbits (read rookies) all around him – so many that he has to retire and return to the pavilion — pavilion being a canopy where he has the eats and the works under the same roof, and of course all the adulation around him.
His team wins the 10/10 cricket easily and he carries the urn (“looks like the Ashes to me”) home. But before that, he can’t stop talking about the makeover his home team — the Black Caps — has had in this tournament, much like India.
“Teams that I’ve been involved with, we hoped that we could win the World Cup but I actually genuinely believe that this team has the belief it can win the World Cup. That’s the big difference. You go out expecting to win games, expecting to win big games, expecting to win the Cup whereas we hoped the other team wouldn’t have a good day. But I genuinely feel this team believes it can win it, and that’s exciting,” he says.
But there have to be some obstacles, doesn’t he think soIJ “Quarterfinals, Semis, Final,” he says laughingly. But he is very proud of what the Black Caps have done thus far, “like India, we are unbeaten and playing a great brand of cricket. We know look forward to the quarter-finals and say ‘can they maintain this formIJ’ The worrying fact is that when you get to quarter-finals, any one player in the opposition can have a great day. We see Maxwell, de Villiers and other great players, Gayle, it doesn’t matter who you play against, in the knock-outs each team is going to have someone who can do that. That’s the only worrying aspect from an outsider’s perspective.
There’s a belief within the side, that it doesn’t matter who they come up against, and so far they’ve come up against the best and done well. That’s probably going to reflect the nature of the top four teams. The other teams that get through have a bit of ‘no fear’. If its West Indies, Pakistan or Bangladesh or Ireland, there’s no fear. That can also be dangerous. It’s a lot of mind games that go on at the quarter-final stage, so it will be fascinating after this last week plays out,” he says.
So what’s the difference between 1992 and now, someone asks. “About 15 kilometres! A lot more pace,” he says sporting wit and humour much like the grace and grit that went with his batting. Actually, “it’s a different brand altogether. What you saw in 1992 was a captain who developed a brand of cricket with Martin Crowe and a group of players that he had, and that’s not dissimilar to what Brendon’s done with this group.
He’s obviously got a little bit more horsepower with bowlers and some aggressive batters, but they’ve worked on a game plan that they think can win games at international level and totally believe in it. Crowe led by example, and Brendon’s doing that. Kane Williamson and others are coming along for the ride,” he said.
McCullum, of course, is someone who has caught his attention. “Those rave reviews are right. For over two years, he’s helped build a brand of cricket that is aggressive and in some ways its creating the new way to play the ODI game. You’re now seeing Michael Clarke, also an excellent captain, do the same. And Dhoni as well, he’s had the bowlers to do it.
It’s one thing to have that style, number two create a team that can back it up, and that’s what Brendon’s got. It’s taken a while in the making but you can see the fruits of it,” Fleming says but not before quickly changing his yellow Hobbit cricket shirt to the black and silver fern T for the formal shoot.
Aggression, he says, is contagious and that’s how McCullum is leading from the top. “Naturally aggressive guy, a gambler as well but I think Brendon’s better than that. It’s just an aggressive outlook where we want to hit every ball for six and it’s obviously contagious. In the past we’ve been a little bit conservative. But now we’re seeing a team that’s ready to bleed runs to get wickets and that seems to be the way that the best teams are playing now,” Fleming feels.