England’s new red-ball coach Stephen Fleming has laid down his target revealing he wants to be incharge of the No 1 Test team in the world. At present, England are sitting fifth in the Test rankings with Fleming set to take over the team from the tour of South Africa later this year.

After England parted ways with Bazball, Fleming addressed his first press conference on Sunday, where he was straightaway asked if one could get to see Flemball. “Flemball? That’s a medical condition,” he began. Despite being appointed as the new Test team coach in the end of July, he couldn’t join the England set up for the series against Pakistan which England won 3-0.

“I would love to be in charge of the No 1 Test team in the world. That would be my aspiration… and as a New Zealander I have watched and loved the Ashes all my cricketing life so to be part of that is an absolute highlight. I can’t wait for that,” Fleming said.

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More importantly Fleming preferred concentrate on the World Test Championship, which England haven’t seemed to have prioritised in the recent years. Right through the Bazball era, head coach Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes preferred to underplay the significance of the WTC, with the over-rate penalties being a constant topic of discussion. “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 said.

Fleming takes over from fellow Kiwi McCullum, whose tenure was in the spotlight. While England did play entertaining cricket, they did self destruct at times by embracing a high-risk formula in Test cricket, where at crucial junctures batsmen threw away their wicket. “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. The last 12 months, it hasn’t evolved as they would have liked or the fans would have liked, but I really loved the positive play and the freeing up of the England players, which was deemed to be a bit of a hurdle. If I could take that and combine a bit of cricket sense in the key moments. There is a piece of work there that has already begun, which is around our identity,” Fleming said.