KEY POINTS:
What price the thoughts of Stephen Fleming as he stood at first slip at Dunedin, surveying the damage as Bangladesh's openers took toll of some poor bowling and overly attacking fields set by Daniel Vettori, his successor?
We'll never know but you can bet his mind was ticking over; he would have been second guessing. Might he have even allowed himself the guilty pleasure of inwardly smiling at Vettori's discomfort? It would be unnatural if he didn't.
Fleming wasn't ready to let go. He made that clear when he came back to New Zealand and it is probably a credit to Fleming and Vettori that the former captain's disgust in and, apparently, mistrust of those involved in the decision to strip him of the test captaincy didn't snowball.
This past week he spoke to reporters and some of what he said was, for Fleming, revealing.
"You are so used to it [decision-making], and conditioned after 10 years of watching the game and instinctively making moves, moving a field, trying to read the game and see the game through your own eyes. To some degree you lose that when you are not captain. Still, I watch and pass information to Daniel, but he sees it differently at times. Therefore your impact on the game is a lot less. Stepping back is a difficult transition," he is reported as saying on www.cricinfo.com.
When asked if it was a relief to hand over the reins, Fleming was surprisingly forthright.
"No, I wasn't relieved. I was disappointed to lose the test captaincy, because I still loved it and still thought I had lot to offer. So I am disappointed that I am still not the test captain."
How does that disappointment manifest itself?
You can't tell on the field. Through the binoculars, Fleming looked as, well, phlegmatic as ever. I've heard people say he should have been more demonstrative in his help to his successor but that is unrealistic. How do you think Vettori would feel if the man lauded as one of the modern game's great captains was still exerting arm-waving authority on the field as he's trying to establish himself?
However, losing the captaincy might precipitate Fleming's retirement rather than prolong it.
Conventional thinking is that freed from the burdens of captaincy, Fleming can concentrate on his willow craft and might have two or three more years left.
However, if Fleming struggles with the bat against England, and without the captaincy to make him feel a valued contributor, he might just pull up stumps there and then.
He has a young family, a guaranteed income from the Indian Premier League and, you would have thought, a spot in the commentary box at Sky, BSkyB or Channel Nine.
When you factor in all that, a valedictory three-month slog around England doesn't seem so attractive.
A couple of big scores against the tourists would change all that.
