Brendon McCullum. Photo / Getty
Gutted but not surprised to be bidding adieu to Brendon Barrie McCullum's black cap at the end of this summer. It always felt like he would be pulling the pin soon after the Cricket World Cup, but the carrot of home and away Test matches against the Australians will have piqued his interest.
I've travelled the world to watch him play pull shots and ramp shots, captain like a hallucinating hippie on LSD and field like a demon possessed. I remember him being kept out of the New Zealand one-day team in the tri-series back in 2002 by Mark 'The Glacier' Richardson - and that meant he was often at the pub with us, tearing it up in a young cricketer kind of a way.
He was never there to make up the numbers, and fade into the background - McCullum's team is there to win - and if they don't win then they won't die wondering as they launch counter-attack after counter-attack. He has earned a reputation in some quarters for brashness, arrogance and superciliousness. As Richie Benaud would say: "That doesn't wash with me." It's bollocks. In McCullum, I've only ever seen a pugnacious cricketer prepared to be aggressive on the field (but not off it), but only ever to help his team get into winning positions.
We'll miss the magnificent bugger. He deserves a hell of a salute at his 100th Test match at the Basin Reserve, and a massive send-off at Hagley Oval next month. Buckle up, and see you there.
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I'd wrongly assumed
McCullum
held the record for most consecutive Test matches in world cricket - he holds the record for most consecutive Test matches from debut. He's just ahead of AB de Villers (98) and Adam Gilchrist (96). But McCullum's a hell of a long way off the post-debut, barnacle-like efforts of
Allan Border
who stitched together 153 consecutive entrances in his baggy green cap from March 1979 through to March 1994. McCullum is 5th overall - with Cook (120 not out), Mark Waugh (107), Sunil Gavaskar (106) also ahead of him.
Stephen Fleming is the second New Zealander, with 72 in a row from July 1999 through to March 2008.
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Border
stars in a pretty incredible beer commercial I stumbled across this week. My favourite comment on the video is from Michael - possibly more proof that Australians are all related: "For those that wanted to know where this was filmed, it's Great Keppel Island. I know cause Ray Phillips who is in the yellow shirt is my Dads cousin..."
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Jeremy Wells and Matt Heath from The Alternative Commentary Collective (
) interviewed that great New Zealand hero,
Grant 'The Hairy Javelin' Elliott.
They play him the ear-splitting semi-final audio from Jason Hoyte and the Collective, and the Pilates-loving all-rounder demonstrates his notorious humility and dry sense of humour in spades. "Don't worry, The Jav's got this..."
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The Herald's Niall Anderson has written one of the most obscure posts about obscure domestic cricketers since 2010 that you could ever hope to lay your cric-lovin' eyes upon. And we don't mean Roydon Hayes obscurity - much, much more aloof than that. His Obscure XI includes the likes of Tamati Clarke: "[He] played two one-dayers at the Mount in 2013, making 14 in the first and three in the second. He currently plays his club cricket for Manukau." Niall, he is also a male model, but he is not from Mudgee. Bottom of the barrel gold.
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How many Test and first-class wickets does Brendon McCullum have
?
Sarfraz Ahmed, caught and bowled in Dubai.
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READ:
Michael Brown on the
Brendon McCullum
back story in
: "In a cold, dark villa typical of many in South Dunedin, a young Brendon McCullum picks up his phone. He shuffles into the kitchen to find some privacy and his voice lowers. It's Sir Richard Hadlee and he's not happy..."
READ:
on McCullum's bamboozling and bone-tired approach to Test cricket, featuring Cleaver the younger. "I wanted to tell Liam that one of his heroes looks knackered, but 10-year-olds don't really get that either. They're either wide awake and creating merry hell, or they're fast asleep."
LISTEN:
The
of The BYC cricket podcast includes a lot of love for Kane 'The King' Williamson and his dethroning of Glenn 'Was the King' Turner. The boys acknowledge a cracking series against the Sri Lankans and their compulsive hooking, and we walk through the Shorties XI featuring Morrison and Van Wyk.
WATCH:
The world's
- a devastating lofted off-drive into the non-striker's face. And out caught and bowled. Note the lack of sympathy from the striker, possibly overwhelmed by bewilderment and disbelief. WTF indeed. Wear a helmet out there folks - even you no-hoper
.
READ:
A delicious Margot Butcher profile of The King who would hate to be called The King, Kane Williamson, from
: "Mindset. For a couple of hours, it's almost exclusively what we talked about in that noisy cafe, and the young cricketer came across as someone who had studied himself through the mirror of cricket."
WATCH:
If you haven't seen Runs in the Family by Tim Finn for 20 years, you need a refresher. Inexplicable, I'd forgotten the little slice of hiphop reggae rap that emerges. Extra for experts in this write-up by
: "Were they using the names of greats like 'Hadlee', 'Coney' and 'Wright' to sell the song? Or were they there to give us a sense of the history of the game. If so, why not Sutcliffe and Reid? The only interesting thing in the rap part was throwing in the word 'Aotearoa!' at the end."
Middle & Leg is a cricket newsletter for New Zealand cricket fans who like a dose of optimism and a tablespoon of take the piss with their weekly cricket informational. It is tapped out by Paul Ford, co-founder of the Beige Brigade, and one-seventh of the Alternative Commentary Collective. You can email him here beigehq@beigebrigade.co.nz.