27th September 1981 was the birth date of a charismatic Kiwi master blaster who had the tendency to perform in the biggest of stages. Brendon McCullum served the New Zealand cricket for a long time and also made a name for himself, especially in the early day of T20 cricket. Against Australia, he scored the 2nd ever T20 International hundred and became the first man to score two T20I hundreds when he scored another one against Bangladesh.
His 158 off 73 balls in the first-ever IPL match in 2008 was legendary. The effort he produced for Kolkata Knight Riders against Royal Challengers Bangalore made the franchise T20 cricket an instant hit and took the fans imaginations to no end. He had seven T20 hundreds for his various teams and scored another 158 for Birmingham Bears against Derbyshire. Although Chris Gayle and Rohit Sharma now own most of the T20 world records it was McCullum who set the early tone.
But despite being a dashing batsman, McCullum also had a pretty good Test record which improved significantly in the later stage of his career when he was made captain and also decided a to not keep wickets in Test. 2014 was an exceptional year for ‘Baz’ as he is known in the cricketing circuit. Four of his top five scores came that year. He started with a double century against the Indians followed by a massive record-breaking 302 in the following week against the same opposition. He scored another double century against Pakistan in November and then round off the year with a 195 in the ‘Boxing Day’ Test match.
The good form continued next year as well and McCullum was in brilliant form in the ICC World Cup at home. New Zealand team gelled pretty well under him and got huge support from the entire nation. He was also coming up with blistering knocks and New Zealand looked a very strong side. Deservingly they reached the World Cup Final for the first time and travelled to MCG for the showdown against the Aussies. McCullum missed out on the final as the player of the tournament Mitchell Starc got rid of him in the first over and crush the New Zealand dream.
But McCullum still had one last performance stored in him in international cricket. A year later he came out to bat in his final Test, also against Australia and blasted a 54-ball hundred. It is the fastest ever hundred in Test cricket. Although New Zealand lost the match, Brendon McCullum showed his class and put his name in the record books.
He kept playing franchise cricket for few more years before getting into coaching roles for various teams.
