Silk purse from a sow's ear

Let's be brutally honest, world-, even Test-, class New Zealand cricketers have been at something of a premium in the past decade or so - Shane Bond, yes; Chris Cairns, certainly; Fleming, probably - which just goes to show quite how hugely influential the soon-to-be retired Stephen Fleming has been in his country's cricketing fortunes over the past decade

A fine, elegant strokemaker, Fleming has surpassed every national record as a batsmen in both forms of the international game, but it is his record as captain that marks him out as one of the three greats of New Zealand cricketing history

80 Tests as captain, 28 wins - that's an astonishing 35% winning ratio; a fine ratio for any Test captain, an absolutely incredible one for any captain regularly forced to open the bowling with the likes of Chris Martin or expect limited - by Test standard - batsmen to build big totals against superior attacks

The '99 series 2-1 loss to Fleming's New Zealand is much talked about here in England - locals drinking at The Chelsea Ram were utterly indignant to find England's cricketers enjoying a right jolly old knees-up immediately following their dreadful performance in the lost 4th and final Test at the Oval - but New Zealand's greatest triumph under Fleming wasn't actually a triumph at all: but it might as well have been (and very nearly was)

To pop over to Australia, to take on the side that had absolutely tooled England, in England, the previous summer and to draw 0-0 in a 3-match rubber - and very nearly win the final Test at Perth - was a remarkable achievement and had many asking the question whether any captain of the modern era had captained a country as skilfully. His targeting of the, by then, 36 year-old Waugh twins with the short ball to successfully exploit their slowing reflexes alone marks him out as a great strategist

That's his record as Test captain (you'll find that this author maintains that, as important as ODIs are, they'll never hold the lustre of a Test match), so what of his record as One Day captain?

The fact that NZ became one of the most feared One Day sides in the world even before the emergence of Shane Bond and the substantial number of devastating hitters that later came along again shows not just how wily a tactical captain Fleming was, but also how good he was at getting the best out of a unit of cricketers. Fleming was disappointed, at the end of his OD career, not to have taken NZ to a World Cup final and well he might have been, because, had he done so, nobody would have been greatly surprised. The single Champions Trophy, as fine an achievement as that was, barely does Fleming's brilliancy as a One Day captain sufficient justice

We have seen the likes of B.C. Lara, J.L. Langer, S.K. Warne, G.D. McGrath, S.M. Pollock and, most recently, A.C. Gilchrist, depart the Test stage in this past 18 months and although S.P. Fleming - as graceful and ocasionally brilliant, even steely, a batsman as he could be - will never be ranked among them as an individual player, his contribution to cricket as a captain - let us not forget his efforts at Nottinghamshire, either - mark him out as one of the greats of the modern game

We should wish him only the very best