Stephen Fleming

[Sir Redman]

No, I copied the batting lists and made a spreadsheet to do it. Took about 10 minutes.

Not bad I suppose. Thought about doing it myself, but just cbf really.

 

[JF.]

*rubs chin* That's actually very interesting. Perhaps medians give a truer picture of a batsman's ability. Especially when you take out the not outs.

 

[Jono]

*rubs chin* That's actually very interesting. Perhaps medians give a truer picture of a batsman's ability. Especially when you take out the not outs.

What do you define as ability?

You'd be hard-pressed to convince many people that believe Hayden has more 'ability' than Lara or Sachin.

 

[NZTailender]

http://statserver.cricket.org/guru?...edhigh=;csearch=;submit=1;.cgifields=viewtype

That is the reason Australians don't rate him as a batsmen. McGrath's biatch.

When you say Australians you mean the population? The Aussie test team rate him, and most Aussie fans I know rate him as well. A lot of them rate Vettori while a lot of Kiwi's don't, funnily enough.

 

[Jono]

Haha I noticed that too. I've spoken to a fair few NZ cricket fans over here in Aus and often I'll be saying something good about Vettori and they'll disagree, basically saying they don't rate him at all.

Always found that interesting.

On the whole I do find NZ cricket fans to be probably the most unbiased from what I've experienced. Fair generalisation I know, but they're not as 'attached' to their players as other nations are. Now I know the predictable response will be "well that's because they have less 'stars' in their team", which may well be correct, but I'm not entirely sure.

 

[pietersenrocks]

Fleming averages 40.15 in test cricket with 9 centuries and 41 half-centuries. Considering he spends half his time batting on New Zealand pitches, do you think that if he had converted more of those half centuries in to centuries he would have been considered as one of the batting greats in the last 20-30 years?

All New-Zealanders average is not good

 

[NZTailender]

Haha I noticed that too. I've spoken to a fair few NZ cricket fans over here in Aus and often I'll be saying something good about Vettori and they'll disagree, basically saying they don't rate him at all.

Always found that interesting.

On the whole I do find NZ cricket fans to be probably the most unbiased from what I've experienced. Fair generalisation I know, but they're not as 'attached' to their players as other nations are. Now I know the predictable response will be "well that's because they have less 'stars' in their team", which may well be correct, but I'm not entirely sure.

I dunno. I think we get attached to certain,singular players than an entire team of blokes.

 

[NZTailender]

All New-Zealanders average is not good

All your posts are average and not good. In the literal sense and not in the New Zealander sense, which is that of the underdog and scrapper.

 

[Great Birtannia]

When you say Australians you mean the population? The Aussie test team rate him, and most Aussie fans I know rate him as well. A lot of them rate Vettori while a lot of Kiwi's don't, funnily enough.

Yeah, just people in general.

On Vettori, he is one of the guys that usually lifts when he plays against Australia, especially in the one dayers. He probably averages more with the bat than Fleming against us too

 

[Natman20]

Yeah, just people in general.

On Vettori, he is one of the guys that usually lifts when he plays against Australia, especially in the one dayers. He probably averages more with the bat than Fleming against us too

Exactly. He is overated by a lot of commentators saying hes a strike weapon and stuff like that when playing in tests against sri lanka which is not true. He is good at keeping the run-rate at a consistent level in ODIs and claiming possibly 1 or 2 wickets generally in an innings but he seems to only really get going against Australia. Fleming has/had the potential to become a great player but really had quite a few bad patches where he didnt score much from memory somewhere around 2001. I think he could be better if he could make it through the first few overs he faces which is a problem because he has the potential to get out to LBWs against pace bowlers such as McGrath early on. He ussually times his innings so that it starts off fairly slow and if he can get past the first stages then he could focus on getting 50s and possibly capitilise on them and score 100s. He is a better player than his figures show. His inability to make centuries a lot of the time is a bit annoying because you tend to feel hes building up and getting better as his innings goes on but then he might lose his concentration and gets out. A great batsman for New Zealand and an even better Captain.

 

[Perm]

The thing is with Daniel Vettori he needs to be targeted to perform well. Like if a batsman tries to get on top of him and hit him out of the park then Vettori is usually able to negate that with his different variations of flight and speed, sadly this doesn't really happen in tests are the batsman are content just to pick him off when he bowls a bad ball.

 

[JF.]

What do you define as ability?

You'd be hard-pressed to convince many people that believe Hayden has more 'ability' than Lara or Sachin.

Unless you're Australian

These figures are just a fun comparison. They're not really meaningful. I mean Fleming's away median is the same as Ponting's!!

But - if you can solve the issue of what to do with not outs... it might be interesting. Not outs muddy cricket averages. Normally, when you calculate a mean average there is just a set of scores which you divide by "n" - being the number of scores. No not outs.

As far as how you define 'ability'. Very very tricky. Very subjective. Which is why people use averages. We try to measure it that way but I'm not convinced it's the answer. Averages are a measure of performance. Ability does not always translate into performance.

Hmmm.....back to the drawing board.....

 

[JF.]

My Aussie cricket fan friends (mostly from another forum since females aren't much into cricket generally) don't rate Fleming. I often wonder if its because he has such a poor record against us and that is all they go on.

A lot of them get really annoyed with me when I stand by my conviction that Fleming is a far far better skipper than Ponting will ever be! I mean really, how hard is it to skipper a side when your hardest decision is whether to bring on McGrath or Warne? Flem can only dream of having that luxury

 

[cbuts]

Another thing to consider with flems record. take his last 50 tests, he averages 44. Now thats as good as crowe. batting on NZ pitches that is world class.


i beleive he is one of only 5 players to have passed 250 3 times.

 

[marc71178]

Another thing to consider with flems record. take his last 50 tests, he averages 44. Now thats as good as crowe. batting on NZ pitches that is world class.

In that period his average in NZ is 32 though.

 

[shortpitched713]

In that period his average in NZ is 32 though.

I have only three words:

Flat Track Bully

 

[JF.]

I have only three words:

Flat Track Bully

Someone once separated his average against spin-bowling from his average against the quicks. It was something like 72 for the spinners and 30 for the quicks

Which makes you wonder why he ever opened in Tests....

 

[Matt52]

He's a decent player Flem, and a good captain. But I think just a good player, not a great one, even if he didnt play in NZ. I'd have prefered if he had batted at 4 or 5 throughout his entire career. Better opportunity and less responsibilty than opening or batting 3, where the pressure of that and captaincy might be a little high. Not saying he hasnt done well in those higher batting positions but he just may have done better if he had stayed in his original spot of 4 or 5. (both forms of the game). His overall record may have been better.