Cricket: McCullum ramps it up over

Brendon McCullum’s innovative ramp shot may force fielding captains to use a back stop. Photo / Getty Images

Might Twenty20 cricket soon be heading back to the school ground?

Brendon McCullum's slashing 56-ball unbeaten 116 which helped New Zealand tie with Australia before winning the one-over eliminator, had players on both sides scratching their heads at how to combat cricket's newest exotic batting development.

Several of McCullum's 12 fours and eight sixes came from the spectacular, daredevil ramp shot, in which McCullum bent low, twisted his body out of the line and used his bat at an angle to spoon the ball over his shoulder, and the wicketkeeper's head.

It was shown to best effect against Australia's quickest bowlers, Shaun Tait, Dirk Nannes and Ryan Harris, all of whom seemed powerless to find a way to stop McCullum's assault.

One idea raised after the match was whether fielding captains might have to consider employing a back stop.

The position, stationed immediately behind the gloveman, would be a throwback to the days of short pants, tearaway 12-year-old fast bowlers and dodgy wicketkeepers.

McCullum, whose 100 was just the second ton in international Twenty20 cricket and one run behind the highest score by West Indian Chris Gayle, said the notion of a back stop had been talked about among some of the players.

"The way the game is going now you've got to access that area behind the keeper," McCullum said.

"When guys are hitting the yorkers you've got to have a method to counter that. That's my method and it certainly opens up a lot more [scoring] areas."

It is a high-risk shot, with the likelihood that sooner rather than later a batsman will wear a ball on the nose.

McCullum said it was totally premeditated but he hadn't thought about being struck in the face "until everyone [started talking] about it", he quipped.

Sri Lankan opener Tillekaratne Dilshan was the first high-profile batsman to use the stroke; McCullum has taken it a stage further, but it's not everyone's cup of tea.

"It's definitely a dangerous shot, if you have the courage to do it. I certainly don't," said Australian batsman Cameron White, who blazed an unbeaten 64 off 26 balls, using more conventional, cleanly struck strokes.

His captain, Michael Clarke, said it was up to bowlers and captains to smarten up their plans.

"Every team has a player who can play that role and when they go off they're hard to stop," he said, citing Gayle, Pakistani Shahid Afridi and Australian opener David Warner as three who also fit that adventurous, free-licence bill.

"You've got to have a plan as a bowling unit, and as a captain, any half chance you've got to get hold of."

Clarke believed the key was to make the batsman play a shot he doesn't want to.

He cited McCullum's liking to hit the ball over cover early in his innings, so "we started dropping point out early and bringing fine leg up, and he got away with playing shots over the keeper.

"Every individual player has a way they succeed and as bowlers you need to beat that."

As for the back stop, McCullum is already half a pace ahead.

"The next step is to try to create a shot which gets it a touch squarer," he said.

"That's the nature of how the game is progressing and what we've seen in Twenty20 is how it's making guys grow their games."

New Zealand's squad for the first two ODIs has Scott Styris and Neil Broom coming in and Gareth Hopkins dropping out.

* The first match is in Napier tomorrow, starting at 2pm.