Brendon McCullum expressed his disappointment with the stumping of Jonny Bairstow by Alex Carey and said that his team won’t be having a friendly beer with the Australian players anytime soon. He also talked about the spirit of the game and how it should be protected. This moral high ground is something we have come to expect from the English of late, but it’s surprising to see it from McCullum.
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In contrast, Kane Williamson was graceful in defeat during the 2019 ODI World Cup final, despite similarly controversial rules. McCullum, however, chose to focus on the positives for his country and offered them motivational advice. It’s also ironic that McCullum has forgotten that he has affected similar stumpings and worse run-outs as a player, with videos of such instances now circulating on Twitter.
Running Chris Mpofu out in 2005
The incident that occurred during the New Zealand tour of Zimbabwe in 2005 raises the question of how wrong it is to run out a player who is celebrating a teammate’s half-century. In the second Test, Blessing Mahwire was on 49 off just 33 balls and had just reached his half-century when he started celebrating at the other end, soaking in the applause from the dressing room.
Meanwhile, Daniel Vettori retrieved the ball and threw it to Brendon McCullum, who took the bails off. Mpofu was shocked, and the dressing room celebrations quickly turned into pack-up mode. Zimbabwe was defeated by an innings and 46 runs, losing the series by a 2-0 margin. Interestingly, in the previous Test, McCullum stumped Mpofu in both innings of Vettori’s bowling.
Running Muthiah Muralidaran out in 2006
In the 2006 two-match Test tour of New Zealand in Christchurch, Kumar Sangakkara scored a brilliant 154-ball hundred, taking Sri Lanka from 99/8 to 170/9. However, the shot that got him to his century, a simple clip to fine-leg, also brought the 10th Sri Lankan wicket.
As Sangakkara raised his bat to celebrate, non-striker Muthiah Muralitharan began to congratulate him but was only a few steps down the line when Brendon McCullum received the ball from deep and took the bails off. McCullum had run out a player who was celebrating a teammate’s century.
New Zealand won the Test by five wickets, but the visitors drew the series 1-1. Both run-outs were under the rules of the game, and neither batter was trying to take advantage of a second run. However, there was hardly any debate on the ‘Spirit of Cricket’ back then, and it would have caused an uproar if anyone did it today while an opposition batter was celebrating a ton.
Brendon McCullum’s ironic attempted stumping of Paul Collingwood in 2009
During the 2009 Champions Trophy match, Paul Collingwood left alone a short ball outside the off-stump from Kyle Mills and walked to have a chat with his partner.McCullum threw the ball at stumps and caught Collingwood short, similar to Carey’s run-out. Although then-captain Vettori withdrew his appeal and shook hands with Collingwood, McCullum believed he did the right thing.
Collingwood was on 14 off 24 balls at the time and went on to top score with a 40 (58) as England were bowled out for 146. New Zealand chased it down in 27.1 overs with McCullum hitting a 48 (39). Now, Collingwood is McCullum’s assistant coach in England. The incident was ironic from the Australian point of view.
