McCullum abandons love for country for the IPL passion
The world class wicket keeper from New Zealand Brendon McCullum has set a new trend of preferring international leagues over the ones played for patriotism. McCullum in his book “Inside Twenty 20” co-authored by journalist Dylan Cleaver has revealed that he has almost turned his back on New Zealand Cricket in order to play a whole season of the Indian Premier League before he changed his mind while he was on a holiday in Fiji with his wife Elissa.
28 years old McCullum in his book “Inside Twenty 20” has talked about the impact of the privately organized lucrative T20 event of Indian Premier League (IPL). The world of cricket has never seen a domestic cricketing event getting this much fame and attracting so much attention. Though IPL was a costly try out but it cleared all the trials and recompensed well to its organisers.
"I felt I had unfinished business from IPL II. The fact that the tournament did not pan out the way I envisaged did not sit well with me. I desperately wanted to turn it around," McCullum wrote. "I must admit I came bloody close to not signing with New Zealand Cricket. I took a plane to http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Fiji-c2897 with my wife, Elissa, for a holiday and to think about what cricket meant to me”.
McCullum, nicked as Baz by his friends, said that the purpose behind going to Fiji on holiday was to question himself how important cricket was to him. He said that the major issue that he was facing was whether he should sign the contract with http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-Zealand-c754 Cricket (NZC) or not. He said that it was the time when he had to set the priorities as he had to give up one thing for the other in the end and what he had never thought of relinquishing was his absolute commitment to his country.
McCullum was among the star picks of the Kolkata Knight Riders in 2008. He kept the event on fire with a pugnacious 158 in Bangalore. Overall the Knight Riders did not perform well under former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly in that season. In the next season, 2009, McCullum was given the captaincy of the Kolkata http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Buchanan-c48808. The team under McCullum performed even worse and finished at the bottom of the points table. A popular blog posted by an anonymous 'Fake IPL blogger' caught butt of jokes as he called McCullum to be an insider in the Knight Riders.
McCullum, who holds a record of 208 consecutive ODI appearances for the Blackcaps, said that he started changing his mind after people started suspecting his commitment to the national cricket team. "I get a bit disappointed when I read that I don't give a rat's a*** about playing for my country. The only reason the inference disappoints me is that I know the sacrifice I made to play for New Zealand. In what other industry would you be expected to take options that cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars?" He wrote in his book.
He was not the only International cricketer to be criticized for preferring IPL over his national duties; several other were also criticized heavily. McCullum and four other New Zealand players missed the initial ten days of England tour and received heavy criticism from the fans as well as the press. He has also written about the incident in his book. "Doing something new is not always popular, is it?" wrote the wicketkeeper batsman in “Inside Twenty20”.
Tags: