Cricket: Fleming to don ODI cap record

Stephen Fleming

Don't mention the 'R' word to Stephen Fleming.

The New Zealand captain might be poised to become the country's most capped one-day player at Jade Stadium today, but he's flatly rejecting any talk of a likely retirement date, or of a World Cup swan-song next year.

And that's not entirely surprising given the treatment meted out to a couple of his contemporaries.

Chris Cairns, who dared to suggest he was holding on until the World Cup, is now a memory, Nathan Astle has only just managed to resuscitate his career, and Chris Harris is a "former" international in all but name.

"There's been a lot of talk about Chris, Nathan, myself and even Dan Vettori in terms of how long can we go on for," Fleming said yesterday.

"But if you're enjoying it and still performing then there's certainly no ceiling on it. As far as I'm concerned, I've got another season coming up with Nottingham and I'm looking forward to that; I find I'm a better player if I continue to play."

Having suffered from a disjointed start to his home programme, Fleming said the rhythm had returned to his game during the earlier two jousts against the West Indies.

New Zealand will take an unassailable 3-nil series lead if they continue their momentum at Jade Stadium - the scene of their world-record run chase in December.

Fleming, who was run out for 90 in his ODI debut against India at Napier in 1994, has played 249 matches for New Zealand and one for the ICC World XI; the Tsunami Relief game in Melbourne last year.

He took over the captaincy from Lee Germon as a 23-year-old in 1997, and since then has been at the helm for 188 of those 249 appearances, an era highlighted by New Zealand's win in the 2000 Champions Trophy.

Of those matches as captain, 82 have ended in success and 93 have been lost, the balance being made up of a tie and a dozen no-results.

Viewed by many as a better strategist than a tactician, in that he plans and schemes better than he thinks on the hoof, Fleming received widespread kudos for his captaincy in the 2000-01 VB Series, and for his tri-series winning efforts in Sri Lanka (2003) and England (2004).

"It's nice any time you overtake a record like that, and it means a lot," he said.

"I don't pay a lot of attention to statistics but to be top of the tree in both forms of the game is nice.

"I stand at slip, bat, captain the side, and, comparatively, the wear and tear on the body is pretty minimal. I'm in a privileged position in that I can go on a little bit longer, form permitting, and have more options than the all-rounders and bowlers."

New Zealand continued to make bold changes to their squad yesterday, this time opting to omit batsman Jamie How from the 13, in a move that Fleming said was based on development, rather than arrogance.

"We're very respectful of any team that comes over here," he said.

"We're very mindful of how good they can be; we saw that for 20 overs down in Queenstown. If we do slip up, we know they're there to take us.

"Whatever we do we won't be compromising the game.

"We can't afford to, we're just not that good."

However, West Indian batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan believed the New Zealanders were possibly becoming intoxicated by success, and could be vulnerable against a strong challenge today.

"Obviously they're trying a few things," he said yesterday.

"I don't know whether it's a measure of disrespect, probably more a measure of being over-confident. But if we can change the momentum in this series, then they will have to change plans."


Third ODI
Jade Stadium, Christchurch

Live on Sky Sport 2/Prime from 2pm.

New Zealand: Stephen Fleming (c), Nathan Astle, Lou Vincent, Hamish Marshall, Scott Styris, Peter Fulton, Brendon McCullum, Daniel Vettori, Jeetan Patel, James Franklin, Michael Mason, Shane Bond, Kyle Mills.

West Indies (from): Shivnarine Chanderpaul (c), Chris Gayle, Daren Ganga, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Runako Morton, Wavell Hinds, Dwayne Smith, Denesh Ramdin, Ian Bradshaw, Deighton Butler, Jerome Taylor, Rawl Lewis, Fidel Edwards.

New Zealand's most-capped ODI players

250 Stephen Fleming
250 Chris Harris
214 Chris Cairns
209 Nathan Astle
179 Adam Parore
175 Craig McMillan
167 Daniel Vettori
149 John Wright
143 Martin Crowe
121 Ken Rutherford

Stephen Fleming

Age: 32 years and 330 days.

ODI debut: 90 v India, Napier, 1994.

Runs: 7070.

Average: 31.99.

Strike-Rate: 70.91.

Favourite moment: 134* v South Africa, 2003 World Cup.