Brendon Barrie McCullum
Brendon Barrie McCullum (born 27 September 1981) is a New Zealand cricketer who currently plays professionally with the Otago Volts at provincial level, the Lahore Qalandars in Pakistan Super League, the Brisbane Heat in Australia’s Big Bash League, the Gujarat Lions in the IPL, Middlesex in the English domestic league and Trinbago Knight Riders in the CPL. He previously captained New Zealand in all three forms of the international game. A big hitting legend in limited over cricket, McCullum took quick scoring to Test matches as well, notably recording the fastest test century of all time. He is considered as one of the most successful captains of New Zealand cricket.
His brother Nathan McCullum was also a first-class and international cricketer, and their father Stuart McCullum was a long-serving first-class player for Otago. Both Brendon and Nathan attended King’s High School in Dunedin.
McCullum is the leading career scorer in Twenty20 International cricket and is the first and so far only player to have scored two Twenty20 International centuries and 2000 runs in T20 Internationals. He was the previous record holder for the highest individual score in a Twenty20 International (123 against Bangladesh in 2012) and second highest individual score in all Twenty20 cricket (158 not out for the Kolkata Knight Riders against the Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2008) which was later surpassed by Chris Gayle (175 against the Pune Warriors India) for the Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2013 edition of IPL . He played for the Kolkata Knight Riders from 20082010 and again from 20122013, while in between he played for the Kochi Tuskers Kerala. He played the 2014 and 2015 seasons for the Chennai Super Kings. McCullum was a wicket-keeper until 2013.
He became the first New Zealander to score a triple hundred in a Test, 302 runs against India on 18 February 2014.In 2014, he also became the first New Zealander to score 1000 test runs in a calendar year (1164). The record was bettered by Kane Williamson with 1172 runs in 2015.
On 22 December 2015, McCullum announced he would retire from international cricket at the end of the southern summer, joining his brother who had earlier that year announced his retirement from all forms of cricket. He is also the highest (170) runs scorer by the captain in his farewell test and first captain to score a century in his farewell test.
In that match, against Australia on 20 February 2016, he posted the fastest ever Test century, in 54 balls, beating the record jointly held by his hero, Vivian Richards and Misbah-ul-Haq, scoring a total of 145 off 79 balls. He formally retired from all international cricket on 24 February 2016. He retired as the most successful skipper of New Zealand across formats with respect to win percentage and is credited for the massive turnaround of New Zealand cricket, from the time he was made captain of the Test side to leading his team to the finals of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 in Australia.
After retirement, he has confirmed to return to Brisbane Heat for BBL 06, as well as being drafted in as one of the foundation members of Gujarat Lions as the highest-paid overseas player of the squad at US$1.1 Million.
Career statistics:
Test
Matches: 101
Runs scored: 6453
100s/50s: 12/31
Top score: 302
ODI
Matches: 260
Runs scored: 6083
100s/50s: 5/32
Top score: 166
