You’d think that by the age of 26, he’d know to look at the end of his legs, but no. Up until now Brendon McCullum’s been incorrectly forcing his footwear onto all sorts of incorrect body parts. He’s been a disaster zone of misapplied shoddery.
McCullum’s been finding his feet in cricket as well, albeit metaphorically. England supporters might be under the impression that he’d done that long ago after he posted scores of 42, 80 not out, 4, 58 and 77 against their team at substantially more than a run a ball. Actually, those were his 10th, 11th and 12th fifties and he’s hit no hundreds in his 104 one-day international innings.
In fact, eight of Brendon McCullum’s 12 fifties have come in his last 22 innings and the four before that were only 51 not out, 56 not out, 51 not out and 50 not out. Before his 86 not out against Australia at Hamilton almost exactly a year ago, when New Zealand successfully chased down 346, McCullum was averaging just 21.71. Since then, he’s averaged 49.82.
Take the period of 14 matches since he was promoted to open and he’s scored half his fifties and averaged 53.66. Not bad for a man who can’t dress himself.
New Zealand v England, fifth one-day international at Christchurch
England 242-7 (Kyle Mills 4-36)
New Zealand 213-6 (Brendon McCullum 77, Ryan Sidebottom 3-51)
New Zealand won after a Duckworth-Lewis calculation.
New Zealand win the series 3-1.
I wish James Anderson would hurry up and find his feet, he’s been rubbish this series. Four wickets at 67.5 a piece. McCullum must feel like Bangladesh are still in town.
At least Ryder won’t be bothering you again on this series.