Stephen Fleming says he 'can’t wait for the Ashes' as new England Test coach and aims for No 1
Stephen Fleming held his first press conference as England’s Test coach in Manchester on 20 September 2026 and said he wants to be in charge of the world’s No 1 Test side, adding: “I can’t wait for that.”
Fleming spoke as rain fell outside and presented a calm figure during the media event, noting England had won 3-0 in the Test series against Pakistan while he attended to family and commercial commitments. He opened with a quip — “Flemball? That’s a medical condition.” — and said he hopes to add “a bit of cricket sense in the key moments” to the Bazball template.
On the World Test Championship, Fleming described it as aspirational and tied its pursuit to England’s identity and style of play, saying: “It’s aspirational. England could do much better than that, even the attitude around the over-rate comes down to identity and style of play. If that’s one of the pinnacle trophies in world cricket, why would we not be trying to get it along with every other marquee event that comes our way?”
Fleming paid tribute to Brendon McCullum, who will remain England’s white-ball coach, calling him an old friend and colleague and saying: “I have a lot of respect for him. The way they [McCullum and Ben Stokes] changed the nature of Test cricket was quite remarkable. I have a huge amount of respect for the courage that took.”
He acknowledged that England will have to operate without Stokes, describing a recent meeting on his county tour where he found Stokes “really happy and seemed to be at peace with his decision. He seems comfortable with what he’s doing. My view: when a player decides to retire it’s a big decision and I have the utmost respect for that decision.”
Fleming pointed to his county-playing past — representing Middlesex, Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire and winning the County Championship in 2005 — as a factor in taking the role, recalling: “I was coming to the end of my captaincy and I was on the edge of falling out of love with the game. I got a call from Mick Newell to captain Nottingham and I fell back in love with it. It kept me in the game in a really positive space. Those were three of my best seasons.”
He said timing matters for coaches and expressed confidence in the current crop of players: “One of the dark arts of coaching is timing. My honest appraisal, it’s a great time to be the head coach. There’s a real opportunity with the players coming through.” Fleming’s playing and coaching résumé was noted in the press conference: he played 111 Tests for New Zealand, was their most successful captain, and has spent the past 18 years with Chennai.
Describing his cricketing preferences, Fleming said: “I am inherently a red-ball lover and that was where I learned strategy, leadership, captaincy, the nuances of the game. If anything, I moulded myself into the white-ball world based on man-management and strategy and leadership, not necessarily as a white-ball strategist or a player.”
Fleming closed by expressing his belief in the endurance of the format, saying: “We are going to reach a point where something is going to have to give and it won’t be Test cricket because it just means too much to players and the cricket ecosystem will survive. Test cricket will survive.”