KEY POINTS:
You will find few better examples of sporting contrast than that provided at Napier yesterday.
At first slip, 34-year-old Stephen Fleming began the last five days of a test career that has seen more than 500; bustling in from the city end was Tim Southee, 19 and wide-eyed.
As with any promising youngster who makes an immediate impact, the emphasis is on potential and what could be. With Fleming, it seems, we have spent the past weeks concentrating on what he wasn't.
He wasn't a prolific compiler of big scores, he wasn't a great converter of starts, he wasn't able to thrust himself from the ranks of very good batsmen to the greats.
For good measure, here's another couple of things he wasn't. Fleming wasn't much of a bowler and he wasn't much of an athlete in the field. He is, in fact, to elegant running what Hicham El-Guerrouj is to the square cut.
Here's something he was, though: in the top five most influential on-field figures in New Zealand cricket history. And out of John R. Reid, Geoff Howarth, Sir Richard Hadlee and Martin Crowe, can any claim to have left as great a legacy?
Reid, Hadlee and Crowe were all better players but not as effective leaders, while Fleming consistently got more from his talent than Howarth, whose status as a top-line international batsman lasted only a few seasons.
Fleming's imprint on cricket in this country has been massive. Forget the fact he has been New Zealand's best, if under-achieving, batsman for a decade and think bigger picture. He took on the captaincy of a team at 23, a team rife with cliques, factions and ordinary cricketers.
Within a few years, they had won a series in England and drawn a series in Australia they might have won with a bit more luck.
He led his team through the sharp end of the birth of player power, the most obvious example being the battle of wills between the nascent players association and New Zealand Cricket chief Martin Snedden.
The players went on strike and the issue was potentially damaging but Fleming, perhaps through a rose-tinted filter, was later portrayed as the key peacemaker. Out of those dark days came a robust contract system that now sees cricketers' salaries at comparable levels to the country's top rugby players.
Fleming's leadership gave New Zealand the respect they had lost on the world stage since the break-up of that talented, volatile bunch from the 1980s. A superb strategist, Fleming could use limited resources to strangle good players.
He also had a ruthless streak that he instilled in those around him. It didn't always make for terrific viewing - such as the infamous go-slow loss against South Africa in the tri-series that ensured Australia would make the final and the gleeful acceptance of Brendon McCullum's run out of Muttiah Muralitharan when the rabbit went to congratulate Kumar Sangakkara on his century - but it meant New Zealand were no longer seen as cricketing doormats.
Gradually his closest allies either retired or were retired. It wasn't like Fleming was losing his grip on the team, just his grip on power.
When he stood down from the captaincy of the one-day team, he couldn't have anticipated how swiftly he would be removed from power.
Even for someone who has been around and has seen as much as Fleming, this would have come as the rudest of awakenings. Suddenly cricket lost a lot of its meaning. He has candidly admitted he doesn't enjoy it as much without the burden of captaincy.
At times he has looked a little lost.
He has also been brutally honest in assessing his career, which goes back to the original point that these past few weeks have been focused on what Fleming wasn't.
But his career hasn't been without notable highlights. He always mentions his stunning World Cup century at the Wanderers. Fair enough. But this is one innings that might otherwise never get a second mention, which is a shame.
In late 2004, New Zealand had been embarrassed in the first test at the Gabba, then had to watch Justin Langer flay them around the Adelaide Oval to the tune of 215 as the home side compiled 575-8.
Fleming was crook, suffering from a fatigue virus (he would later have a tumour cut out of his neck). As he sat padded up in the stand waiting to bat, he was spotted falling asleep.
He didn't have long to wait, as Mathew Sinclair, forced into opening, was dismissed for a 10-ball duck.
Against the relentless accuracy of Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie, Michael Kasprowicz and Shane Warne, Fleming scored a technically excellent 83. It stood out like a beacon. For once, put aside the thought it was another innings unfulfilled.
