Prince Brendan McCullum is 26 years old.
That gives him another ten years in the big league.
Who knows how many 80’s and 90’s he can score in that time.
But, what if he learns to make hundreds.
I don’t mean in state games, or wearing golden helmets, I mean real test hundreds, against teams that win test matches.
Test match batting is becoming a western shoot out.
Plodders are being found out by McGrath replicants.
The two species that are flourishing are Probots, and Smackers.
McCullum is about as far from a probot as you can get.
He rides his luck over by over.
A simple cover drive is air borne for no real reason.
A flick to the leg side becomes a hoick.
Slips seem to be irrelevant for him, because when he edges the ball, third man is much more likely to see it.
Bracewell has shown a lot of faith in a man who averages 30 in tests, but you can see why.
Every time he steps on the field his performances seem to get better.
It was only a few months ago I was thinking that he was going to be a player who gets a 30 or 40, before losing the plot and going out.
At that stage I even rated Luke Ronchi above him.
I’m not saying McCullum is a dud, in fact he fits the mould of New Zealand wicket keepers perfectly. More than decent annoying batsman, who sledges well and generally p1sses off opposition teams.
Right now that looks like a massive understatement, but at the time it was justified, he hadn’t made a test hundred against anyone, he averaged less than 30 in both forms of the game, and on paper Vettori was as good a test batsman as him.
All that is gone now, he has finally started stringing real innings together, and is a number 5 test batsmen who can make 97 on a spicy deck at lords, while his team mates look like lemmings.
But why have I selected him in my most important cricketers list.
Because in him, New Zealand have a weapon that can win matches.
He has the ability to shape New Zealand’s next ten years like no one since Hadlee has.
New Zealand are well known for their medium paced grinders, and there top order plodders.
But in McCullum they have a man who can win a test match in a session, and that is the only way the Kiwis will ever beat other sides.
Batsman don’t generally win matches, but Gilly proved that it can be done regularly if you hit the ball hard enough.
If teams like New Zealand and West Indies drop off now, world cricket is in real trouble.
McCullum has the potential to keep them close enough to the best teams, they still may not win a lot of series, but teams will have to find a way around him in order to win.
Watching him is like watching to people have sex in a car crash, there are so many ways it can go wrong, but somehow everyone walks away fine, and you can’t believe what you’ve seen.
New Zealanders generally only go to cricket matches when their players are dressed in black, but the Prince makes test cricket exciting, and he could even woo some rugby supporters to a test match.
New Zealand need two things in their cricket, match winners, and draw cards, Prince Brendan is both, and he is only just getting started.
He even managed to make a Gold Helmet look cool.
Monsieur , what kind of a man is Brendan McCullum?
Oh, he's just like any other man, only more so....
www.cricketwithballs.com "Now with extra juicy Podcast"
No comments:
Post a Comment