'I couldn't have asked for more' - Fleming
Stephen Fleming had a thoroughly satisfactory day out
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan in Mohali
25-Oct-2006
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He started the fight with a battling effort on a juicy track and ended the
contest with a fine catch. In between he became the captain with most
number of caps and runs. At the end of the day, he'd enabled New Zealand
to cruise into the semi-finals, becoming the first side to do so in this
competition. Stephen Fleming, as he admitted at the end of the day, really
"couldn't have asked for more".
"The number of balls that passed the bat and the number of inside edges
that went for one, could have been out on any other day," he said. "But we made the most of it and put up a pretty competitive score."
If Fleming's innings was important for New Zealand to stay in the contest,
Shane Bond's final spell, when the game was really up for grabs, sealed
it. In the first over of his second spell, Bond first knocked over
Mohammad Yousuf, who's gorgeous 71 threatened to win it for Pakistan,
before accounting for the dangerous Razzaq a couple of overs later. "It
was such a crucial moment," admitted Fleming. "He [Yousuf] was batting so
well. I brought the strike bowler back and got the wicket. Just delighted
we sort of treading the water a little bit, needed something to happen.
"What we saw was a guy with extra pace," he continued while talking of a
spell that was furious in its execution. Bond cleverly used the dew-factor
to his advantage, digging in the shot balls and exploiting the zip. "He's
also extremely smart," Fleming assessed, "he bowls different pace bouncers
in the slog overs, that is the kind of things he works on. He is also very
quick on his day."
What New Zealand also had to counter was the wetness, a critical factor
despite chemicals being sprayed on the outfield. "It was pretty wet,"
Fleming said," and everyone did everything in their power to make it as
dry as possible. We changed the balls many times as possible. It was still
wet, but we were able to cope with it. Daniel Vettori, in particular,
bowled extremely well."
Scott Styris, who'd top-scored with a vital 86, couldn't take the field
after injuring his back and Fleming hoped he would recover in time for the
sem-final. "His back and hamstring is still pretty tight. His back
stiffened up quite dramatically, so we have to see how he copes up. Shane
also had a twinge with his hamstring. That is why we made him bowl the
rest of his overs instead of waiting till the death."
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan is staff writer of Cricinfo