KEY POINTS:
If there was any justice in the cricketing world then wicket-keeper Brendon McCullum would have been named man of the match after New Zealand's seven- wicket win over the West Indies.
The little gloveman demonstrated why he's regarded as the world's safest pair of hands when he set the tempo for a fielding effort that suffocated the West Indies and effectively handed the game to New Zealand on a plate.
Fieldsmen don't often receive consideration for MVP status, but McCullum's effort at the Sir Vivian Richards Oval yesterday deserved the highest acclaim and was probably more influential than Scott Styris' half-century, or the three wickets apiece taken by Shane Bond, Jacob Oram and Daniel Vettori.
The 25-year-old, who worked tirelessly on bare-handed keeping drills at practice the day before, gloved the ball expertly and took four catches, the first of which will go down in the annals as one of the best grabs in New Zealand World Cup history.
Standing back to Jacob Oram, McCullum sent the dangerous Ramnaresh Sarwan packing after snaring a wondrous left-handed diving catch off the inside edge, the feat made even more improbable given he was at first moving in the wrong direction.
He later demonstrated superb technique and no small amount of courage when, standing up to Styris and wearing a helmet, he somehow accepted a bottom-edge off the bat of left-hander Brian Lara, despite the batsman aiming a wild smear towards the leg-side.
McCullum said the reflex catch off Sarwan was one of the best he had taken.
"I guess given the situation of the game it's right up there," he said. "It came at key times and I think the team took a bit of momentum from it. Probably 99 per cent of your edges are going to come from the outside of the bat, so you can't train for things like that.
"It's more about giving yourself a good chance."
Between the Sarwan and Lara dismissals, McCullum also managed to hang on to a pair of more regulation catches to end the resistance of Marvan Samuels and Dwayne Bravo, and continued to support what was a match-winning effort in the field.
"I was stoked with my keeping. I feel I've been keeping pretty well for a while now but put down a couple of catches in the last two games. So it was nice to take the chances when they came."
New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming was delighted with the form of his gloveman and said McCullum's urgency was especially important in the field now that Lou Vincent was sidelined with injury.
"It was pretty special," said Fleming. "It's the little things he's doing, not just the catches. His work over the stumps has been very good but he does a lot of work off the ball and the energy he creates is important to the side.
"Having lost a key fielder in Lou, it was important we kept the intensity up in the field and Brendon's gone a long way towards that."
