Fleming all praise for Shane Bond

St Peter's, Antigua, Apr 3: New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming today praised his fast bowler Shane Bond for his ''man of the match'' award winning bowling performance against Bangladesh in their Super Eight encounter here.

Injury prone Bond, bowled a fascinating spell of ten overs against Bangladesh conceding just 15 runs to grab two wickets, prompting Stephen Fleming to single him out for praise saying, ''He's bowling well at the top, there's no doubt about that.'' ''His second spell has been the key to the team as he always picks up wickets during the spell and it eventually helps us to keep our opponents down to a low score. The change of pace, a little bit of reverse swing and the length that he is hitting makes captaincy during that period very easy,'' Fleming said reporters after the match.

Addressing the post match media conference, the player of the match expressed his long cherished desire of becoming the world's top fast bowler.

''It's something that has driven me since my first series in Australia, it's always been my goal to be the number one bowler in the world,'' he said, adding,''the hardest thing is that the wickets are so different. It's just about assessing and adjusting to those conditions and bowling well. If you are bowling consistently in the right areas you are going to have success.'' The 31-year-old Kiwi bowler, who holds the distinction of being the fastest to reach 100 wickets in one-day cricket history, was also hopeful of mantaining the consistency in the rest of the tournament and exuded confidence over his side reaching the last four. ''We already are on the course of making it to the semis.

We have six points in kitty and still four more matches to play.''

UNI