Fleming happy with Nottinghamshire stint

Stephen Fleming, the New Zealand captain, has said that he was pleased with his county stint after he captained Nottinghamshire to win the county chamionship.

Fleming was happy to have returned to form during the English summer where he scored 908 runs in 11 matches at an average of 60.53. "On a personal front, the batting side went really well, so I'm feeling pretty confident about my game again," Fleming was quoted as saying by stuff.co.nz. "But winning the championship was an enormous thrill. No side has ever won the first division a year after winning the second so that is something I will never forget. I actually found it quite hard at the start walking into a successful and experienced side and that was a great challenge for my leadership skills."

Nottinghamshire's county championship win came under much criticism from Shane Warne, the Hampshire captain and Chris Adams, the Sussex captain. While playing Kent, Fleming had an arrangement with David Fulton, the Kent captain, by which Fulton agreed to declare Kent's innings in return for Fleming not enforcing the follow on.

The arrangement was that Nottinghamshire would set Kent a target to chase, albeit a virtually impossible one of 420 runs in 70 overs, and Kent fed them runs to speed up the process. In the end Kent fell well short, being bowled out for 205 giving Nottinghamshire the county championship. "Neither of those blokes [Warne and Adams] are exactly quiet types," said Fleming. There was some flak and we accept that but the bottom line is we were the best team and no one disputes that."

Fleming was enthralled by the Ashes series that England won 2-1. "England were able to stay at full strength till the last game whereas Australia didn't have McGrath for a fair bit," said Fleming. "You need your best team on the park and that is something we continually battle with by having to fire on three cylinders rather than six."

Fleming will captain New Zealand on their tour of South Africa in October 2005 to play five one-day matches. "I support any move that will have Chris [Cairns] at full fitness for the World Cup [in March 2007 in the West Indies]," said Fleming after Cairns was left out of the team for the South Africa tour. He termed Cairns' omission as disappointing but added that he understood the selectors' thinking.