![\"Stephen](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Stephen_Fleming_and_Brendon_McCullum.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nFormer NZ cricketer Neil Wagner has backed Kiwi Stephen Fleming\u2019s appointment as England\u2019s new Test cricket head coach, describing it as a strong move for the side.<\/p>\n
Replacing fellow former Blackcaps captain Brendon McCullum, Fleming takes on the role after spending many years coaching in T20 franchise cricket around the world, where he has built a reputation as one of the most respected figures in the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Flem is a pretty good man to do that job,\u201d Wagner told\u00a0 Sport Nation\u2019s Scotty & Izzy just hours after the announcement, which will also see Joe Root return as England\u2019s red-ball captain.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Stephen Fleming and Brendon McCullum celebrate a New Zealand victory over Australia in 2007 | Photo: Andrew Cornaga\/AAP<\/p>\n
He believes Fleming’s role came after support from the English players.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith all these T20 leagues around the world, players have a big say now. They get to experience these coaches closer than they ever had before so no doubt there would have been players probably pushing it as well,” he explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe experience he’s got, the knowledge and the calmness he’s got, I think in all fairness I think it’s a really good appointment.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, coming from T20, Wagner admitted the transition may come with challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s a different beast going obviously from such a long time coaching T20 cricket now and go do Test cricket, a completely different format.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut with so much going on, so much media noise and you having to control the media more than anything else plus your players, he’s got a massive job at hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Brendon](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/a6cd6bb0-f290-405f-9947-4c59ffecfba5.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
England coach Brendon McCullum | Photo: AP<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, McCullum was stood down from the Test side, although he’ll remain head coach of both the T20 and ODI national teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cBaz and Flem are pretty good mates so he\u2019s probably given him a good understanding of what’s to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
Listen to the full interview below:<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former NZ cricketer Neil Wagner has backed Kiwi Stephen Fleming\u2019s appointment as England\u2019s new Test cricket head coach,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":834500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-834499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=834499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/834500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=834499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=834499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=834499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}