‘Outstanding leader’ Fleming backed to find calm among the chaos for England

New Zealander has won the County Championship and makes those around him better but is also not averse to mind games

With two games of the 2005 season remaining Nottinghamshire, under the captaincy of Stephen Fleming, were sitting precariously at the top of the County Championship, still needing to visit their two main rivals. First up was Kent: Notts were 397 for five after the first day, but rain washed out most of the second and at the end of the third Kent were only five down. A draw looked inevitable, and with a Shane Warne-inspired Hampshire – Notts’ final opponents – on their way to victory at Glamorgan the title chase seemed to be turning. But Fleming had other plans.

“He called a meeting of the senior players on the fourth morning to say he had an idea,” says Darren Bicknell, his Notts teammate. “If Kent didn’t win the game against us, they were dead, they’d have no way to win the title, so he recognised that he had them over a barrel a little bit.” Fleming offered Kent the chance to chase 420 in 70 overs, an unlikely target – but also the best they were going to get. “To take a calculated gamble in that game was a stroke of genius,” Bicknell says. “Some of the senior players were a bit anxious, thinking we didn’t need to take any risks because the draw was still a good result. But people went with him.”

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