Fleming settling in to a second innings

PHIL REID/Dominion Post

GETTING TO GRIPS: Stephen Fleming relishes his sport management and marketing role with Australian firm Insite.

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Outside Stephen Fleming's front door is a new pair of running shoes he says he road-tested earlier in the day.

Inside is a young family and an office in which the former New Zealand cricket skipper is conducting his second innings.

Fleming, 35, is trying to find his feet in an elaborate sport management and marketing role with Australian firm Insite. First impressions are that the transition from international cricket to businessman has gone smoothly.

He looks the same bloke who said farewell to test cricket at McLean Park, Napier, seven months ago, only he now carries a laptop under his left arm rather than a Gunn and Moore bat.

And while he used to have big crowds watching him, now the only person beating down the door is daughter Tayla, who is nearly three.

"Working from home isn't the long- term plan but at the moment it is fine, even if the odd Hi-5 stick gets poked under the door," Fleming said yesterday.

Fleming's in good form. Work is exercising his brain, golf gets the competitive juices flowing (he plays off a 6.8 handicap at Heretaunga), family is close and the cricket he plays in India is short and handsomely paid.

So what does he actually do?

"I'm not Jerry Maguire," he says to the common belief that he is a sport agent. "I'm not a sports agent, I'm not a marketer."

In a nutshell, Fleming works for an exclusive management agency that looks after present and potential sports stars. In Australia, Brett Lee and Mike Hussey are clients while the Evers-Swindell twins headline the New Zealand wing.

"I've gone from something I knew back to front to something I don't know anything about, so it stresses me out a bit," Fleming said.

"On one hand it was the challenge I wanted but on the other hand it is pretty daunting setting up shareholder agreements and employer contracts, tax ... I had no idea about from scratch.

"I know how business proposals work and that is my value. I'm looking from an athletes' point of view at what needs to be done and give it an athlete flavour but sometimes I come home more tired from that, than a day of test cricket."

Fleming's approach is in thinking long-term for his clients, who include Tim Southee and James Franklin.

"The landscape has changed because of the money on offer in India," he said.

"We are trying to set up deals for young players which represent their interests five years down the track not flogging off something then and there.

"Tim Southee, for example, in five years' time, will be one of New Zealand's best players so we want him in a position, rather than having had 10 to 15 commercial opportunities worth $10,000, where he can align himself with companies that best fit for him."

It's the morning after New Zealand has suffered a shock one-day loss to Bangladesh but Fleming harbours no bitterness despite his retirement being hastened by the selectors stripping him of the test captaincy.

He knows Daniel Vettori's men were ring rusty "but they'd want to win the next couple".

He seems more interested in their new one-strip. He's another who thinks the blue/black makes the New Zealand team look like Scotland but is the first to raise the question of whether the silver panels are closer to white and might lift a few opponents' eyebrows.

Fleming says the ease of the detachment from a New Zealand team he was part of for 15 years has been surprisingly smooth.

"I thought I would miss the tour to England, but having my hands full here and getting into the business meant I was okay.

"The camaraderie I miss, you lose that mateship with the players, you can't replicate that. Moving away from that is the hardest thing.

"I was disappointed I wasn't in England from a captaincy point of view. I wanted to beat England at Trent Bridge, that was my dream. Watching them play at Trent Bridge, where I loved playing for Notts, that was disappointing. But I've dealt with it, there is no bitterness, there is just disappointment.

"I had a dream that I didn't think I would deviate from, so that was a shock, but that's just the realism of professional sport."

Fleming is more open these days. There is a hot drink, a trip to his wine cellar, and an eye cast over his back lawn - where he has wheel-barrowed in tonnes of dirt.