Cricket: Brendon McCullum hits record 158 in T20

Brendon McCullum. Photograph By Greg Bowker

Brendon McCullum might have had a quiet series by his standards during New Zealand's recent tour of England and faced questions about how long his body can cope with international cricket but he reminded everyone today of his destructive qualities.

The Black Caps captain smacked an unbeaten 158 from just 64 balls as his Birmingham Bears beat Derbyshire Falcons by 60 runs in the NatWest T20 Blast at Edgbaston. It equalled his own Twenty20 best, scored on his Indian Premier League debut in 2008, which is also the second-highest individual score in world T20 cricket.

His innings included 13 fours and 11 sixes and lifted Birmingham to 242 for two - their highest total in the format and the joint-third biggest by any team in English domestic T20.

McCullum brought up his first 50 in a relatively sedate 23 but accelerated to his seventh Twenty20 hundred in another 19 balls. He motored to his 150 in just 18 more and, had Laurie Evans not eaten up 13 balls in his 16, McCullum might have challenged Chris Gayle's 175 - the highest T20 score.

It was an incredible exhibition of power-batting, full of lacerating straight and leg-side hits and laced with improvisation with a couple of fours scooped over the wicketkeeper's head.

"Brendon McCullum's innings was brutal," Warwickshire director of cricket Dougie Brown said. "It was measured and it was world-class. It was everything we knew we were getting when we signed him for seven games. He is a world-class player.

"It was a brilliant innings but everything about him is impressive. The way he has straight away become part of the team and the club. He is a class act, on and off the field, you could see that the way he was signing all those autographs.

"He is just a very impressive bloke. Expectation can be a horrible thing but here is a guy who can deal with that whether he is leading his country in a World Cup campaign that changed people's ideas about the way the game is played or coming here and playing for us."

McCullum has now amassed seven T20 centuries, second only to Chris Gayle's 15, and scored them playing for New Zealand, Kolkata, Otago, Chennai and now Birmingham.

Derbyshire's 182 all out in reply was a decent effort - and New Zealand batsman Hamish Rutherford scored 39 off 21 balls - but predictably fell short as they had to go for broke from the start of their chase.

"Every defeat hurts but the game was won by an individual and one of the best who has ever played this version of the game," Derbyshire T20 captain Durston said. "It was special.

"We just had a discussion about what we could have done differently and we were scratching our heads. He barely mis-hit a ball, he didn't offer any chances at all and hit fours and sixes all around the wicket.

"Some days you just have to say 'well played' and this was one of them. We can't have 15 fielders and you can only have two men out on the powerplay. Once he got a few away, you could just see him licking his lips and enjoying what he was doing.

"At no point was he taking the mickey, he was just playing the way he plays and away from the fact I was captaining the opposition, I have to say I enjoyed watching it. It was an exhibition."

-Agencies