Fleming steps down as OD captain

[Sir Redman]

Absolutely. The NZ domestic season thread had a bit about it...mostly us rubbishing the declaration before being humiliated by the result.

Ah yes, that was where I won my only ever CW award (the Greigy) with a brilliantly premature spray on a rubbish piece of captaincy by Vettori

 

[Sir Redman]

I once read that Martin Crowe was a tremendous critic of Stephen Fleming when he was made captain. Can anybody expand on this for me? What did Crowe say about Fleming that was negative?

Yeah, when Fleming was first made captain Crowe was heavily critical of the decision, saying that Fleming was too laidback for the job. I can't be bothered looking for a link to a story, but if you want to you could do a search of cricinfo or stuff.co.nz for it.

 

[James]

and what annoys me the most is comments like this. Can't we just let our actions on the field speak louder than words?

Our rugby team are going to make the same sort of comments later this year too and finish up getting beaten by Australia in the semis again....

I couldn't agree more with Martin Crowe's assessment on our World Cup performance.

 

[Loony BoB]

and what annoys me the most is comments like this. Can't we just let our actions on the field speak louder than words?

Come on, James, it's not like he said we were favourites. He said we have a chance. What was he supposed to say when asked if he thinks we can win? "No, I don't think we have a chance, that's just silly."?

 

[Sir Redman]

That was the thing that annoyed me most of all, I can handle the fact that we lost but when we put up such a spineless effort it just really guts me.

Yep, me too.

What absolutely does my head in is that we know exactly how Malinga and Vaas are going to bowl, yet we never do anything to counter it. Why not try backing away and slapping them over point or something like that? As it was we always just try and poke them out for ten overs, resulting in the continued limp capitulations against them.

 

[James]

Come on, James, it's not like he said we were favourites. He said we have a chance. What was he supposed to say when asked if he thinks we can win? "No, I don't think we have a chance, that's just silly."?

He was saying more than we have a chance. I'd compare to the media asking the Scotland rugby captain whether they have a chance of the winning the Rugby World Cup. They've got about as must chance of winning it as I have of swimming to Scotland... Same thing applies to the Black Caps so why kid themselves?

Why talk it up is what I'm really getting at?

 

[Loony BoB]

We'd beaten Sri Lanka in a warmup before the WC and we'd drawn against them in our last series. We'd beaten Aussie 3-0 in our last series. We did have a strong chance. Not the best chance, nobody said we were favourites - but we did have a damned good chance as far as I'm concerned. With NZ vs. SL, it's all about what team turns up on the day. If the good team turned up, we'd have won it.

We had far, far more of a chance of winning the cricket world cup than Scotland do of winning the rugby world cup. Taking things to extremes, mate!

It's not about talking it up. It's about answering a question posed by the media. He's not going to say our chances are average or poor. No captain would in such a position. Or at least, not any of the captains of those we had in these semifinals.

 

[Poker Boy]

TBH I'm not surprised - he won't be playing at the next WC so he probably thinks "I'll go now and give my succsessor the maximum time to bed in". it will be interesting to see if they let him captain the Test team - split captaincy worked for Australia but England and SL abandoned it within a year and the NZ scenario is different in that you could argue Fleming is good enough to be still in the ODI team (not as opener though!) which wasn't the case with SL and England. Fleming IMO was the best at making use of limited resources - I wonder if Steve Waugh or Clive Lloyd could have done better with a good, but not great team. And as for what he said about the WC, he said they COUD win it, not that they WOUD, and they coud have - they were one of the best four teams and when you get to the SF its who performs on the day..and they didn't perform yesterday.

 

[Isolator]

We'd beaten Sri Lanka in a warmup before the WC and we'd drawn against them in our last series.

In NZ. A series which NZ should have won.

We'd beaten Aussie 3-0 in our last series. We did have a strong chance.

I said it a while back...this win was hugely overrated. (I'll dig up some of my previous posts, they make me look awesome.)

Anyway, I hope that Fleming can bat a bit more freely now.

 

[_Ed_]

In NZ. A series which NZ should have won.

Except we adopted a ridiculous rotation policy that in my opinion cost us not only victory in that series but a place in the CB Series finals too (not that we would have won that).

Having said that, SL played superbly in conditions they aren't really suited to, although they've become quite familiar with them in recent years.

 

[Loony BoB]

Still, we'd shown we were capable. It's not like we didn't strongly deserve to be in the semis, and anyone who deserves to be in the semis has a strong chance of making the final, and these days if you win the toss in a final then you're halfway there.

 

[honestbharani]

I dunno what u Kiwi fans are on, tbh. I think New Zealand have performed well enough to be categorized as being in the top 3/4 of ODI teams and given that they are extremely tough to beat at home and rather competitive away from home most of the time, I would rate them as a very good ODI side. No need to be so negative, IMHO.

 

[SJS]

This was our worse performance in the World Cup since i saw my first World Cup in 1992 IMO.

How many good performances did we actually have? We beat a hopeless England and West Indies team, lost to Australia heavily, and lost to Sri Lanka twice heavily. The only remotely good performance was against South Africa and who was our best bowler? Craig McMillan, that says it all.

Did we see any fight in the big games?

Thats true. If there is a defence, a feeble one it might appear, I am not sure they had a great draw. Just have a look at their schedule before the semis.

- England
- Kenya
- Canada

- West Indies
- Bangladesh
- Ireland
- Sri Lanka
- South Africa
- Australia

They kept playing minnows and the weakest of the non-minnows for five weeks and accumulating points and, I dare say, a false sense of well being. I might be wrong but I do suspect a better distribution of the tougher games would have seen a better performance from them.

 

[Craig]

One that springs to mind was in the VB series in Australia a few years ago. Australia, South Africa and New Zealand were participating in the series. New Zealand were playing South Africa and South Africa were very much on top and likely to win. Rather than asking his players to try and pull off a mircale victory, he told them not to pass a certain amount of runs so South Africa could get the bonus point - which they did. Thus ending Australia's chances of making the final.

I can understand not wanting to play Australia, but to deliberately tank a game seems against the spirit of the game. I'm against the bonus point system for that reason. Asking your players not to try and win a game, to tank it so it eliminates Australia... it just seems against the spirit of the game not to ask them to play their best, not to play with pride and not to try and win the game. The crowd got bored and booed as well, as it produced some dull cricket.

So what would you have done then?

 

[Craig]

We'd beaten Sri Lanka in a warmup before the WC and we'd drawn against them in our last series. We'd beaten Aussie 3-0 in our last series. We did have a strong chance. Not the best chance, nobody said we were favourites - but we did have a damned good chance as far as I'm concerned. With NZ vs. SL, it's all about what team turns up on the day. If the good team turned up, we'd have won it.

We had far, far more of a chance of winning the cricket world cup than Scotland do of winning the rugby world cup. Taking things to extremes, mate!

It's not about talking it up. It's about answering a question posed by the media. He's not going to say our chances are average or poor. No captain would in such a position. Or at least, not any of the captains of those we had in these semifinals.

Believe Alec Stewart has or the assorted a lot of English captains when playing against Australia in the 1990's or earlier this decade.

 

[Craig]

I dunno what u Kiwi fans are on, tbh. I think New Zealand have performed well enough to be categorized as being in the top 3/4 of ODI teams and given that they are extremely tough to beat at home and rather competitive away from home most of the time, I would rate them as a very good ODI side. No need to be so negative, IMHO.

Couldn't agree more, it is this sort of talk that really pisses me off no end, it is like 'Great we won' and when it is a loss it is "Oh I knew we would lose so it doesn't surprise me". FFS what was the point of even watching or even following the game?

 

[Loony BoB]

Believe Alec Stewart has or the assorted a lot of English captains when playing against Australia in the 1990's or earlier this decade.

With all due respect, England were crap at that time, weren't they? New Zealand on this occasion aren't crap.

 

[Smudge]

and what annoys me the most is comments like this. Can't we just let our actions on the field speak louder than words?

Our rugby team are going to make the same sort of comments later this year too and finish up getting beaten by Australia in the semis again....
.

Sorry James, but that's ridiculous. If Richie McCaw says anything OTHER than they're a very good chance at the RWC if he's asked that question, he'll get laughed out of the press conference.

One of this country's biggest problems is the unrealistic expectations we put on every sports team as a result of the historical success of the All Blacks. We will never be #1 in world cricket. Ever. And with the way the junior grades and lower grades are looking, I expect us to slide down over the coming decades.

 

[Craig]

With all due respect, England were crap at that time, weren't they? New Zealand on this occasion aren't crap.

Yeah it was in the 2001 NatWest Series and IIRC Stewart said he hoped they would be competitive against Australia and I believe Nasser Hussain has said that in the past.

They may have been crap then, but it is hardly the positive thing to say and is only going to lower their morale. When I read it was I really did wish I was one of the top brass in the ECB or at least in the selection panel and would of got rid of every player who said that in public or felt that way.

IMO if you are not there to try and win or if you are one of the weaker teams (say an Ireland) and not to give 110% of all of your ability then for mine there is no point being out there.

 

[Loony BoB]

Think we agree on the reason for Fleming saying that in any case, then, yeah.