Stephen Fleming

He was particularly noted for his captaincy, having been praised from the likes of Shane Warne as the "best captain in world cricket"[12] and most recently, Graeme Swann who said that Fleming is one of the two true leaders that he's ever seen, alongside Andrew Strauss.

Fleming became New Zealand's most successful captain in September 2000 with a victory over Zimbabwe. This was the 12th win under his captaincy overtaking Geoff Howarth. Fleming was regarded by some as an underperformer with the bat, with one of the worst 50 to 100 conversion ratios in world cricket. However, since the 2003 tour of Sri Lanka, Fleming started to gain form, with 274 not out against Sri Lanka – when he declared rather than staying to reach 300 which would have been a record in New Zealand cricket history.

Arguably Fleming's best ODI innings was his unbeaten 134 to help New Zealand beat hosts South Africa in the 2003 Cricket World Cup. Chasing a rain adjusted target of 229 off 39 overs, Fleming hit 134 off just 132 deliveries as New Zealand cruised to a 9-wicket victory over a team they had struggled against in the past.

Fleming adjusting the field at Nottinghamshire. Fleming was regarded as one of the world's best cricket captains.

In the second Test between New Zealand and South Africa at Newlands, Cape Town in April 2006, Fleming scored his 3rd Test double-century and became the first New Zealander to achieve this feat. Fleming scored 262 as he and Wellington teammate James Franklin put 256 runs for the 8th wicket, the highest partnership to date in Tests between New Zealand and South Africa. It is also a New Zealand record for the 8th wicket against any country.

On 25 October 2006, Fleming captained his country for the 194th time in an ODI – a world record, overtaking Arjuna Ranatunga. He played well throughout the 2007 World Cup scoring 353 runs at an average of 39.22 and was New Zealand's second highest run scorer in the tournament. He failed in the semi-final against Sri Lanka scoring just 1 off 4 balls as New Zealand went on to lose the match and crashed out of the tournament. On 24 April 2007, Fleming resigned as the ODI captain of the Blackcaps. The announcement was made in a post-match press conference held after the Semi-Final defeat to Sri Lanka in the 2007 Cricket World Cup.[13] After Fleming's last match as captain, Mahela Jayawardene added a tribute. "Stephen's been a great leader for New Zealand for some time, and you could learn a lot from him". Over a decade of leading the side he finished with 218 games, 98 wins, 106 losses.

As of April 2007, Fleming had captained New Zealand in 80 Test matches—a New Zealand record and the second highest number worldwide .[14] As a fielder, Fleming took over 170 catches giving him the 3rd highest Test aggregate for a non-wicketkeeper.[15]

In September 2007, Fleming was replaced by Daniel Vettori as the New Zealand Test captain. He also left English county Nottinghamshire after three years as captain. In February 2008 Fleming ended speculation and confirmed his retirement from the New Zealand team at the end of England's 2008 tour of New Zealand to spend more time with his family, and to play for the Indian Premier League.[2]

He played well in his final series, scoring 297 in six innings. In the first innings of the second test against England, he scored his 7000th run in his 110th match. In his final test at, Napier, he scored half-centuries in both innings to ensure that he finished with a Test match average of over 40 (40.06).

Fleming played for the Chennai Super Kings in the 2008 Indian Premier League after being signed for US$350,000. He played 10 matches and scored 196 runs at an average of 21.77 with a highest score of 45. He was appointed as Coach of the Chennai Super Kings in 2009 and retired as a player from the team. He has had a very successful stint with the team winning the IPL 2010, CLT20 2010 and IPL 2011. He coached Chennai Super Kings for 6 years before it got suspended from IPL for two years according to the decision of Justice RM Lodha committee. In IPL 2016 he became the coach of Rising Pune Supergiants. In IPL 2018, he returned as Coach of Chennai Super Kings after the Two Years Suspension of Team by Justice RM Lodha Committee. The Chennai Super Kings also won the IPL 2018 with him coaching and managing a side with a good rapport between the Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni and him, accused by many of being too old for T20 format, to win critical moments and turning out some match winning performances from nearly improbable positions, by his own admission, with a highly intelligent and experienced team as vindicated by their clinical batting winning close games and picking/blocking bowlers at high pressure situations especially during run-chases.

Fleming has since been involved in setting up CricHQ with the company's CEO Simon Baker and former New Zealand cricket captain Brendon McCullum. Fleming is one of 160 investors and a director in the company. Having met Simon Baker with Brendon McCullum he commented that CricHQ "clicked with us both as a business and a means of giving back to the game that had given us so much'. The cricket competition management software and live scoring platform manages the administration of cricket test countries New Zealand, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Zimbabwe with 49 of 105 national governing bodies also use its services from club level upwards. In June 2015 it raised US$10m from Singapore private equity firm Tembusu Partners to expand globally.[16]

Fleming had coached and captained the T20 Black Clash representing Team Cricket vs Team Rugby. On 17 January 2020, Fleming was bowled out by Hurricanes Unity Back - Jordie Barrett for a duck. Eventually Team Cricket has won by 2 runs.

• Second most capped ODI Captain (218 matches as of 24 April 2017) just behind Ricky Ponting[17]
• The most catches in Tests by a fielder in a calendar year with 28 in 1997[18]
• First batsman to score nervous 90 on ODI debut[19]
• He holds the record for the second highest batting strike rate in a test innings(281.81)[20]

• Second most Test runs and matches for a New Zealander (7172 and 111)
• Most Test ODI matches by a New Zealander (171 and 279)
• Most catches by a New Zealander in Test and ODI cricket (171 and 132)
• Most capped Test Captain for New Zealand (80 matches)
• Most capped ODI Captain for New Zealand (218 matches)

An innings-by-innings breakdown of Fleming's Test match batting career, showing runs scored (red bars) and the average of the last ten innings (blue line).