Biography of Stephen Fleming:- Stephen Fleming is a former International cricketer and captain of New Zealand Cricket team. He was born in Christchurch on April 1st, 1973.
Fleming bats with the left hand and was considered one of the greatest batsmen in Cricket New Zealand. Stephen Fleming played International cricket for 14 years and represented Wellington, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, Middlesex CC, Canterbury CC, and Chennai Super Kings in IPL apart from playing for his national team.
Stephen Fleming coached franchise Melbourne Stars for the 2015 season of BBL. The youngest Kiwi captain led New Zealand to most wins as a captain and most matches overall as a leader.
Biography of Stephen Fleming
- Born:- 1 April 1973 (age 44), Christchurch, New Zealand
- Height:- 1.88 m
- Spouse:- Kelly Payne (m. 2007)
- Team Coached:- Chennai Super Kings
- Test Debut:- 19 March 1994 v India
- Children:- Copper
He was elegant and stylish in hammering and driving both the white and red ball, his left-handed batting style was ambiguous to the opposing bowlers.
He is far more better if we compare Stephen Fleming to the bowlers of his time, the great WWs, Brett lee and Glenn McGrath, the spin masters with the likes of Saqlain Mushtaq and Muttiah Muralitharan, he is rated as one of the best things happened to cricket New Zealand in 90s and 2000s.
As a captain, no one could ever be so crafty and tactful than Stephen Fleming, he hid a player or two and tempts the batsmen to hit that way, his fielding sometimes changed after the batsman had thought of hitting that way. As far as Fleming’s fielding is concerned, he was a prolific catcher at slip position and point sometimes.
While Playing in the top-order, there was less than a little room for Stephen Fleming, he handled the pressure wisely as a top-order batsman and later as a captain of his team.
Fleming had remained the best captain of New Zealand before Brendon McCullum took the stats away. With an overall batting average above 40 and some quality, match-winning scores made him a national hero long before captaincy.
Stephen Fleming took some periodic training sessions with multiple English county leagues and then came IPL and BBL that provided a chance for him to mentor the future superstars.
The autobiography of Stephen Fleming, “Balance of Power” released in December 2004 explained it all about a prolonged and efficacious career touched his personal life, and some interesting face-offs and conversations with International cricketers.
Stephen Fleming retired from Test and ODI cricket in 2007 and 2008 respectively, Fleming remained the captain of New Zealand test team for 10 years.
Stephen Fleming Stats and Records
Fleming was one of the few New Zealand players in modern cricket to surpass 100 test matches. At his retirement, he had played 111 test matches, and 280 ODIs.
In test cricket, Stephen Fleming scored 7,172 at a batting average of 40 with 9 centuries and 46 valuable half-centuries. His top score was 246 not out against Sri Lanka in 2003.
He catches the ball 174 times in the longer format. In 280 ODIs, Stephen Fleming managed to surpass 8000 runs with a batting average of 32.40 that included his 8 centuries and 49 fifties. His highest score remained 134 not out. He took 133 catches in ODI career and 304 overall in International cricket.
In 247 first-class matches of which most of the games were played overseas in England by Stephen Fleming, a total of 16,409 runs, along with 35 centuries and 93 half-centuries with a batting average of 43.87 were amassed by Kiwi captain. Stephen Fleming batting performance remained the power factor in his first-class career.
Stephen has the record for most catches in a calendar year i.e. 28 in test format in 1997. Stephen Fleming is the most capped captain in ODI format from New Zealand.
He captained Kiwis in 218 matches for more than a decade. He is still the highest run-scorer in New Zealand Test and ODI team. Fleming also held most number of catches than any of the New Zealander in both Test and ODI format.
International Career
His first series against India proved to be a new era for New Zealand when he was handed over the man of the match on his test debut for his 92-run inning. In the next couple of years, Fleming had a rough patch of career filled with controversies and bad form.
His first century came after three years in a home series against England. It was the same tour when Stephen Fleming was made test captain of New Zealand, the youngest captain in the history of the country.
In 2000, Fleming surpassed Howarth in most test wins as a New Zealand captain by winning 12 games. Before we became familiar to Misbah-ul-Haq, it was Stephen Flemings who was notorious for his worst fifty to hundred conversion rate as a player.
However, Fleming’s valuable 50-run knocks helped New Zealand more than his hundreds could. In 2003 World Cup, it was Fleming and Fleming alone who guided New Zealand to 9-wicket victory to the semi-finalsagainst South Africa in World Cup 2003 in a chase.
In 2006, Stephen Fleming was all-time most experienced captain in One Day Internationals when he capped as a captain in 194th ODI.
In the next World Cup 2007, he was the second highest run scorer for New Zealand with 353 runs having a batting average nearing 40 per game.
It was the last tournament for Stephen Fleming as a player and captain when they were knocked out from the tournament in semi-finals. Stephen Fleming captained ODI team in 218 games, he also captained in 80 test matches.
After retirement, Fleming enjoyed a season or two playing for several cricket leagues including IPL and ICL. Fleming ended his International career with a spectacular home series seen by thousands of spectators from all over the country.
He completed 8000 runs in his last ODI series and 7000 runs in his farewell Test series finishing slightly above the 40 runs average per inning.
Post Retirement Cricket Career
Soon after Fleming left International cricket, IPL auctions started, and he was signed by CSK for the inaugural season of Indian Premier League.
Later in 2009, CSK appointed Stephen Fleming as their mentor, later in 2010 CSK won the IPL, then Champions League later in the year and the next IPL season in 2011.
He remained with the franchise for 6 years, recently Fleming joined Rising Pune Supergiants for the 2016-2017 season of IPL. Stephen Fleming also coached Melbourne Stars in Big Bash League.
Stephen Fleming Family and Personal Life
Fleming and his biological father Gary Kirk were teammates in Senior Rugby. Fleming was a semi-pro rugby player even after he joined International cricket for a living.
Fleming dated Kelly Payne for more than five years and got married in May 2007 in Wellington. Before marriage, they had a daughter Tayla Fleming who was born in 2006. Their son Cooper was born a year after marriage in 2008.
Stephen Fleming was awarded the order of merit in 2011 Queen’s Birthday Honors for his 14 years to the game of cricket. Fleming is a co-founder of one of Cricket’s richest and most followed website CricHQ along with Brendon McCullum and Simon Baker.
Fleming had the idea for so long to have a startup and to give it back to cricket by it. As of 2016, CricHQ is one of the multi-million dollar website and sports software and is working globally in all cricket-playing nations.
