Cricket: Whiz kid McCullum spotted at an early age

RICHARD BOOCK reports from Brisbane on the player who has academy director and coach Dayle Hadlee waxing lyrical.

They say Brendon McCullum was always heading for the upper tier. You could see it in his eyes, apparently.

The young tyro who made his one-day international debut in the cauldron of the Sydney Cricket Ground on Thursday night was earmarked early on by New Zealand Cricket's talent identification programme, and even earlier by anyone who watched the game in Central Otago.

It was there, on the bank at Molyneux Park, Alexandra, that the boy from Dunedin strutted his stuff as a pre-teen, always in the thick of the action on the boundary edge as a game of pick-up proceeded hand-in-hand with the main event.

In a game where the kid who made the dismissal batted, the young McCullum was more often than not batting, possibly explaining why his older brother Nathan eventually developed into a bowler.

It's a long way from Central Otago to Sydney, but as soon as NZC's academy got whiff of his potential, he always seemed destined for the top - and particularly after consecutive scores of 123, 186, 46 not out and 100 in last summer's under-19 test series against South Africa.

Academy director and coach Dayle Hadlee says the one remarkable aspect of McCullum is his eyesight, matched only by Lou Vincent's in the New Zealand squad.

"Brendon and Lou have the most exceptional eyes. They seem to pick up the ball much earlier than most players and because of that they have this astonishing reaction speed," Hadlee says.

"But Brendon - he's got fast eyes, fast hands, fast reaction speed - he's the most exciting talent I've seen in recent years."

The irony is that McCullum, although scoring a brilliant 123 against Auckland in a four-dayer this season, has not been able to replicate his form on the domestic one-day scene, and sported a single-figure average when he was selected for the New Zealand squad.

He is almost certainly New Zealand's first selection made with next year's World Cup in mind, and NZC medics hope he will soon recover from a chronic knee problem and resume his role as a wicketkeeper/batsman.

His development on that front will be of particular interest to the New Zealand selectors as they ponder life after Adam Parore, a question which seemed to have no clear answer until McCullum exploded on to the scene last summer.

"He's a very good wicketkeeper, and ideally he would be a strong candidate in the post-Parore era," Hadlee says.

"These days we're used to having a wicketkeeper who can bat effectively, so if he can come back and do both it would be great."

The son of Jan and Stu McCullum - the gritty left-hander who played 75 first-class matches for Otago between 1976-77 and 1990-91 - Brendon is the brother of off-spinner Nathan, who went through the NZC academy last year and is also a member of the Otago side.

Stu McCullum was a batsman who sold his wicket dearly and gave no quarter, whether he was playing in a districts match at Oturehura or in a Shell Trophy final at Carisbrook.

Hadlee reckons the sons have inherited their father's scrapping qualities and that Brendon, in particular, has an ideal temperament for the international sporting stage.

"He's very determined, very gutsy - an optimist. He doesn't care who's bowling, he just goes out and plays his natural game, and I hope he'll continue to do that for New Zealand."

Otago coach Glenn Turner and Sky commentator Martin Crowe were two dissenting voices when McCullum's selection was being debated, but Hadlee believed the young dasher could handle the pressure.

"Brendon's got incredible natural talent and I guess it's just a matter of his decision-making at this level, which will be a real challenge for him,"Hadlee says. "I don't expect he'll become a sensation overnight, but I'm sure we're going to see glimpses of what's about to come."