Fleming nearly took ICL's 'ridiculous money'

Stephen Fleming seriously considered joining the Indian Cricket League after he was told three weeks ago he was being sacked as New Zealand's Test captain. However, he has no regrets about staying with the established side and wants to play until the Test tour of England next May and June.

New Zealand Cricket (NZC) confirmed on Wednesday that Daniel Vettori was taking over the Test captaincy from Fleming, who had been in charge for ten years. After the announcement, Fleming told the Dominion Post the ICL had offered him US$500,000 to play in their month-long Twenty20 tournament.

"When John [Bracewell] told me the news I had to sit down and think about what I wanted to do and the rebel thing was certainly one of the options," Fleming said. "It was stupid not to acknowledge that it was ridiculous money so I had to sit down with the family and work out what I wanted to do and where it would fit in.

"But I'm happy to stay with the established side and I've chosen this route and now I hope I've got some good Test runs left. I think people would have understood if I had gone because I had set my sights on leading the Test team and to have that changed so dramatically took some time to digest. Effectively I had lost my job so there was a lot of emotion flying around."

Fleming quit as the ODI leader after New Zealand's World Cup semi-final exit and he was hoping a policy of split captains would work in the short-term. However, he later discovered the selectors were unhappy with that decision and he "started to get a bit nervous" about the Test captaincy.

"I felt we were in an unique position where I had a huge amount of experience and Daniel was very confident about what he wanted to achieve so there was never going to be a power battle," Fleming said. "We never seem able to get both forms of the game going so I thought the experiment could work through to the end of the England tour."

Fleming still hopes to make the trip to England but it will be only as a batsman. It will bring back memories of what he called his finest moment in charge of the Test side, leading New Zealand to a 2-1 series win in England in 1999. He had been hoping to add a series triumph in South Africa to his list of achievements but he will now enter that tour, in November, as a regular player.