Napoleon Bonaparte was forced to flee Corsica with his family and from then on became an implacable French nationalist. Adolf Hitler, who was Austrian, turned into a fanatical advocate of German racial superiority; and Josef Stalin, a Georgian who spoke Russian with a thick accent all his life, became an equally fanatical supporter of Great Russian centralism.

When Stephen Fleming took over the New Zealand cricket captaincy in 1997, the team was at its lowest ebb since the late 1950s.

A revolving-door policy which had seen five coaches in four years, poor team discipline, bitter factions within the team, players leaving tours when still in progress and a range of other indiscretions, had seen the team slip to second to last in both first-class and ODI rankings - with Zimbabwe biting at their heels.

But Fleming had been identified as a leader from an early age, and on his appointment to the captaincy aged just 23,  he announced where his inspiration came from - Australia.

A year later he met up with Steve Waugh at a meeting of international captains in Melbourne, and a close friendship developed. Fleming now had a mentor, and he was in charge.  Under his leadership, things were now run differently, as evidenced by:

• Declaring 198 runs behind against Australia on the first innings at the start of the last day meant that Waugh had no option but to accept the challenge and set NZ a gettable target. They came within 10 runs of victory in a memorable draw.