The best pound-for-pound captain

As I write, Stephen Fleming requires 54 runs in New Zealand’s second innings in Napier to finish his Test career with an average of 40. Much as this shamefully unreconstructed Pom wants to see England win the series, I’d willingly trade that for a spot of statistical justice.

On the face of it, New Zealand’s highest runscorer in Tests is out of his depth. With nine centuries to date, he stands six behind Alec Stewart as the maker of the fewest hundreds by any amasser of 7000-plus runs. He is also the only member of that 32-strong elite bar Mike Atherton (37.69) to average under 40. Ultimately, though, whether he gathers those 54 runs should have no effect on how posterity treats him.

It is one of professional boxing’s few saving graces that commentators still attempt to identify the world’s best “pound-for-pound” pugilist, for all that proving as much is impossible. On the basis that he is a heavyweight with a flyweight’s economic resources, Fleming deserves to be remembered as the best pound-for-pound captain of modern times, if not ever.

In terms of longevity, nobody can match his 298 games (126 wins, 133 defeats) in charge. Leading New Zealand 80 times in Tests, second only to Allan Border’s 93, he won 28, drew 25 and lost 27: a better winning percentage, it bears noting, than Border, Atherton or Imran Khan. He also participated in three World Cups and 218 ODIs as captain: 25 more than his nearest rival, Arjuna Ranatunga. Overall, his one-day reign encompassed 98 victories, giving him a better winning percentage than Greg Chappell, Javed Miandad and Sunil Gavaskar.

His former teammate Mark Richardson commented a couple of days ago that Fleming was a dictator who may have exerted too much control, that he did it his way too often, at least until John Bracewell’s appointment as coach. The selflessness, nonetheless, shone through. “I'll have a lot of regrets, most of them statistical,” Fleming admitted last week, “because I haven't been able to gear myself up as a player who achieves statistically great things. I've tried but I've loved the thrill of the battle and the competition [too much].” If that sounded self-serving, a flimsy alibi for individual under-achievement, it should not.

The last time our paths crossed was at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium shortly before the 2002-03 Ashes, during the ill-fated Power Cricket experiment. The previous winter, but for a couple of dubious umpiring decisions, New Zealand – aided, admittedly, by some charitable weather that prompted Steve Waugh to take undue risks - would have been the first to win a Test series in Australia since 1993. As it was, the hosts failed to prevail at home for the first time in a dozen rubbers. Only India have subsequently come so close to bearding the lion in its own den. No-one was in any doubt as to where the inspiration lay.

Fleming’s most important instruction was crystal-clear: ignore anything Glenn McGrath pitches outside the stumps. The fruits were plentiful: the galaxy’s most metronomic fast bowler wound up with five wickets in the series at 65 apiece. What a pity, the precipitously de-striped Fleming must have mused in recent weeks, that the likes of Bell, Sinclair and McCullum are too fond of nibbling, and far too indisciplined, to follow suit against lesser mortals such as Sidebottom, Anderson and Broad.

In essence, Fleming summed up that Welsh evening, it had been a case of refusing to be bullied. “The whole time we were [in Australia] we were bombarded with this, this…environment. Not intimidating so much as intense. But we were surprisingly confident after the planning we put in. You do so much preparation you make up the gap and breed confidence. They never bowled us out – we prided ourselves on that. You’ve got to stand up to them.”

Standing up and being counted: Stephen Fleming has spent his entire career doing just that. Let’s hope, for his sake, that he can drag that average up to 40, but his place in the game’s hall of fame, and our affections, should not depend on it.