25 February 2008

Brilliant Brendon

The heir-apparent is ready to take over. Just as King Adam Gilchrist I is ready to abdicate, we have his successor Price Brendon McCullum ready to take over. So, it seems that bowlers all over the world have a new Antipodean glove-man to be afraid of. 80*(28), 80*(47), 77(43), 52*(21), 51*(22), 50*(25) have been some of Brendon's innings on the big stage and as is evident from the strike rate, the impact is devastating.
With the Kolkatta franchise paying him a whopping US$700000 to rope him in, the IPL is the newest stage for the pocket dynamo to shine. The cover boundaries are going to be peppered and the crowd going to have their fill as McCullum looks to be one of the buys of the tournament.
He may not succeed always, but when he succeeds, boy, a television set seems to be the best invention of mankind.

4 comments:

John said...

The wicket-keeper batsman is now central to a team's fortunes in ODIs. As Gilchrist and slowly Boucher too, walk into the sunset, both Oz and South Africa will look for capable replacements.

India have Dhoni, Sri Lanka have Kumar, Kiwis have Brendon.

Pak could do better than Kamran, and England hope they have found their man in Mustard.

TM said...

Dont a shocking number of wicketkeeper batsmen open the bat at the top of the order these days? The old concept of him providing solidity at the bottom of the order seems to have gradually been done away with. Of the top teams, Dhoni and Boucher bat lowish, but Gilchrist, Kumara, Mustard, McCullum, Kamran all seem to bat at the top. Maybe its because you got to have great eye-hand to keep?

John said...

Kamran and Mustard aren't so sure of their spots in the team. Kamran's good, but only against India. Mustard is the latest in a long line of English failures since Stewart cut. Ramdin is hanging on, but that is only because the rest of the batting line up does not outshine him tremendously.

Sajith said...

True, the really succesful ODI teams seem to have a great wicket keeper - batsman. Infact I think they are the real allrounders in most teams.