Stephen Fleming, Kevin Pietersen and Brendon McCullum on the outfield before England\u2019s T20 match against Sri Lanka.<\/span> Photograph: Matthew Lewis\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cThe last 12 months, it hasn\u2019t evolved as they would have liked or the fans would have liked, but I really loved the positive play and the freeing up of the England players, which was deemed to be a bit of a hurdle. If I could take that and combine a bit of cricket sense in the key moments \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a piece of work there that has already begun, which is around our identity. There has been a lot of coverage around that. The way players represent England and the group is going to be really important to me. I feel very strongly about finding a sense of belonging within the group and that will take a bit of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
But they will have to do it without Stokes. Fleming\u2019s \u201ctour of love\u201d around the counties this past week included a stop off at Chester-le-Street where he met Stokes who had just completed a mammoth bowling stint. \u201cHe\u2019s really happy and seemed to be at peace with his decision. He seems comfortable with what he\u2019s doing. My view: when a player decides to retire it\u2019s a big decision and I have the utmost respect for that decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fleming spent time playing for Middlesex, Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, where he won the County Championship in 2005, and that was a big draw in his decision to take the job. \u201cI was coming to the end of my captaincy and I was on the edge of falling out of love with the game. I got a call from Mick Newell to captain Nottingham and I fell back in love with it. It kept me in the game in a really positive space. Those were three of my best seasons.\u201d<\/p>\n
He has been impressed on what he has seen of future players. \u201cOne of the dark arts of coaching is timing. My honest appraisal, it\u2019s a great time to be the head coach. There\u2019s a real opportunity with the players coming through.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fleming played 111 Tests for New Zealand, and was their most successful captain, and has spent the past 18 years with Chennai. How would the switch from white-ball work? \u201cI am inherently a red-ball lover and that was where I learned strategy, leadership, captaincy, the nuances of the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf anything, I moulded myself into the white-ball world based on man-management and strategy and leadership, not necessarily as a white-ball strategist or a player.\u201d<\/p>\n
Test cricket fans can be take some succour from his optimism over the future of the game. \u201cWe are going to reach a point where something is going to have to give and it won\u2019t be Test cricket because it just means too much to players and the cricket ecosystem will survive. Test cricket will survive.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cFlemball? That\u2019s a medical condition.\u201d Stephen Fleming\u2019s first press conference as England Test coach was exactly what you would expect from a man appointed to bring calm to a team that had started to career off course. While the Manchester rain did its worst outside, Fleming was the handsome sea captain on top of his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":263568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6803],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-263567","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}