5 reasons why Brendon McCullum will be missed
Brendon McCullum leading the players off the field after the culmination of the 2nd Test against Australia, and with it, his international career.Some cricketers play to win, some play for their own fun, and some play for glory. Brendon McCullum played cricket to entertain. It was as simple as that.As he bids adieu to international cricket, this would be McCullum’s biggest contribution to the game – he showed cricketers you can entertain the crowds- whether it is as a fielder, or as a batsman, or as a captain- and that was always his greatest prerogative.When Richard Hadlee exalted Brendon McCullum as the best thing to have happened to New Zealand cricket, he wasn’t too far off the mark. Hadlee knows a thing or two about cricket, being New Zealand’s greatest bowler and one of the greatest and most versatile fast bowlers cricket has ever seen.It wasn’t always this way, however, for McCullum who took up the captaincy in tumultuous circumstances, under allegations of being divisive, especially rubbing off their star batsman, Ross Taylor, who was his predecessor in captaincy, in the wrong way.A terrible defeat against South Africa followed and New Zealand hit rock bottom. Another person could have buckled right there, but not McCullum. He turned things around spectacularly and if there has been a team that played a sport in the image of its captain, it is New Zealand in the last couple of years.Now that McCullum has called it quits in international cricket, we will definitely miss him for more than a few reasons. Here are the top 5.
#5 A fielder par excellence
Cricket doesn’t have more than a handful of fielders who can match McCullum’s fielding capabilities, let alone bettering them. McCullum’s leaps and dives at the long on and long-off boundaries is the stuff of a legend.
One of the most athletic fielders ever, McCullum is known for putting his body on the line every single time he chased a ball, no matter what the match situation was – a quality that has earned him a lot of praise from MS Dhoni, a captain who has an obvious penchant for committed fielders.
Watching McCullum’s exploits on the field was a joy in itself. Whether it was his catch in the Champions Trophy in 2013 against Sri Lanka, or those that he took for the Chennai Super Kings, McCullum’s aerial exploits have been well documented.
He was one of those rare fielders who were always busy on the field and always managed to contribute in one way or the other, who loved the ball coming their way and often leapt impossible distances if it didn’t come exactly their way.
In all, McCullum has 198, 262 and 36 catches as fielder and wicket-keeper in Tests, ODIs and T20I.
McCullum was probably New Zealand’s best wicket-keeper batsman before he decided in 2012, to play as a pure batsman, a risk he pulled off in style. However, that was not before he did his bit with the gloves, ending up as the first Black Caps wicket-keeper with more than 200 dismissals in ODI cricket.
He is second only to Adam Parore in Tests with 178 dismissals. However, his overall dismissals as wicket-keeper in all formats is a New Zealand record – 462, way ahead of any of their other wicket-keepers.