http://www.senore.com/Cricket/ICC-World-Cup-2011-c100625 World T20 - Brutality that has set the tournament alight (Part 2) - Opinion
McCullum’s innings included 11 boundaries and 7 monstrous sixes, at an astonishing strike rate of 212.06. Ironically, his sixes galore were also laced with his sweaty palms and quality running between the wickets where the odd single and double ensured that the scoreboard ticked over on a consistent basis. Bangladesh were appalling in the field and their bowling which promised so much in the Asia Cup of 2012, looked one dimensional and ragged to say the least. The lengths which were bowled to McCullum were far from the corridor of uncertainty that could trouble him, where both the spinners and the faster men were hammered into submission.
McCullum however, was not complaining as he feasted on the bowling and took advantage of the poor fielding on display by bruising the attack badly. The problem for Bangladesh was that whatever their skipper http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mushfiqur-Rahim-c2045 tried to thwart McCullum’s dynamism, it backfired miserably for the team as the batsman managed to outwit their tactics and come up with something truly special.
The fact that Bangladesh erred in line against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-Zealand-c754 however, would be an unfair way to gauge McCullum’s diabolical hitting and dexterity at the crease. He played orthodox cricket shots for the most part of his innings, where most of the deliveries that he managed to deposit for fours and sixes were straight off the meat of his blade. Yet unlike most of his contemporaries in the tournament such as Chris Gayle, McCullum resorted to playing some astonishingly, horizontal bat shots as well, where he clubbed perfectly decent deliveries for sixes, with impunity. For the crowd at Pallekele, this was a treat to watch, as McCullum went about playing strokes which were not only unconventional, but extremely effective in terms of power and grace at the same time.
The only shot that was missing from Brendon McCullum’s innings was the ‘Dilscoop’, which was pioneered by http://www.senore.com/Cricket/SW-Tait-c2616 for a six at Christchurch in 2009 during his brutal century against the Aussies was an absolute treat and widely acknowledged, but his inability to do so in this innings, was partly because the Aussies were bowling a fuller length to him. Bangladesh on the other hand, resorted to bowling short on a wicket that offered plenty of opportunities for the ball to swing if it was pitched up, which was an open invitation for the Kiwi wicketkeeper to smash boundaries at will.
One of the highlights of his innings was when he smashed http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Bangladesh-c747 bowlers, where even decent deliveries were being thrashed for boundaries and sixes.
McCullum surpassed http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758, then it can be rest assured that the dynamic batting that was witnessed in previous editions of the tournament could well and truly be witnessed this time around as well. For a tournament that was beginning to die death, this is exactly what is needed to revive the spirits of the fans.
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