McCullum still king in game of thrones

Jared Smith

We are a nation whose cultures are encompassed within a land mass area of only 268,021 square kilometres - you can drive it in two days, fly it in less than one.

Therefore, by definition, there is only so much wealth and influence to go around, with much more sense of entitlement than actual ownership among the populace.

So, when one of us dares to reach the highest of heights in their particular realm across these three little islands, the rest of us hard knockers need to be dead sure they truly earned it. And even then, the acknowledgment may come begrudgingly.

My fellow scribe Phil Gifford penned a thoughtful piece last week demanding to know exactly what Black Caps skipper Brendon McCullum still has to do to silence his detractors.

After all, he has just done the impossible by guiding the team to a test win in Pakistan against the same subcontinent team who thumped Australia, all in the shadow of the Phillip Hughes tragedy.

McCullum now stands with an impressive captaincy record, by our standards, of six test wins and three draws from 11 games.

His double century against Pakistan invoked memories of last summer's nation-stopping 302 against India, so Gifford could not understand why the down-to-earth Otago lad always seems only one bad day away from being vehemently targeted by the nation's talkback radio mob.

Perhaps to offer levity to this injustice, Cantabrian Gifford wondered if white-haired New Zealand simply couldn't stand McCullum's arm sleeve tattoos - simply not cricket, old boy.

I had a discussion about this tall poppy mentality with my knowledgeable sporting uncle last weekend, and found myself quoting that saucy medieval drama Game of Thrones.

"There are still those in the Seven Kingdoms who call me 'usurper'," lamented King Robert Baratheon to his friend Eddard Stark. Never mind Big Rob had seized power from a mad king who had gotten into the awkward habit of burning people alive - no matter how unfit to rule the predecessor may be, what was taken by force was still not earned.

We are now two years removed from the disastrous man-management decision by coach Mike Hesson to walk into Ross Taylor's hotel room on the eve of a test match and tell the good-natured Black Caps skipper he was being replaced.

It has been somewhat established, through miles of newspaper column ink, that while being the beneficiary, McCullum was not directly involved in some high-brow conspiracy to usurp his popular, although admittedly underperforming, leader.

Taylor was canonised, despite the fact the bungled handling glossed over the quite pertinent reasons behind it - his win/loss record as captain was poor.

The mixed messages which followed over whether the deposed Taylor had been offered to remain skipper in one of the three formats (test, one day, T20) and then refused, only intensified the maelstrom around McCullum, especially as the cause was taken up by a group of former players.

Their agenda seemed larger than on-field test leadership but rather changing the governance of NZ Cricket itself. Yet for McCullum, the mud sticks.

One story I remember that didn't receive as much coverage as the juicy McCullum vs Taylor for the Crown yarn was the fact the pair remain, for all intents and purposes, pretty good mates.

Their gentlemen's agreement to gift each other a bottle of wine for every international hundred scored is still in place and saw enough claret pass between them last summer to open a winery.

In writing a column thanking McCullum for scoring the 300 and helping bury the ghosts of his own infamous 299, former skipper and batting legend Martin Crowe tellingly shared his praise between both men for lifting the New Zealand team to new heights.

"McCullum was always a leader. He did it at under-19 level superbly.

"Taylor was in that team, three years the junior. So McCullum should always have assumed the mantle of national captain one day - a natural step from vice-captaincy to Dan Vettori," Crowe explained. "Somehow he got laid off from the vice-captaincy in 2009, Taylor reluctantly stepping into the breach."

These are the details which many on talkback, and in our own media, conveniently forget to mention.

So, Hesson, who we now at least acknowledge is a capable coach, proved too blunt when a delicate hand was needed for a necessary evil, something that should never have landed on McCullum's doorstep. Lesson lived and learned.

It's not like other pen-pushers on our three islands are so infallible.

Believe me, after a decade in the newspaper journalism business I've met more than a few upper management types who think "tact" is a pin you use to hang papers on the wall.

Taylor himself, speaking less than a year later, showed he held no grudges towards his "usurper".

"Until one of us retires, it's going to be around. And that's not from our doing.

"I'm sure it's an interesting subject for a lot of people and it's an easy one for them to talk about."

These two boys smash hundreds together, swap wine bottles, and have a laugh in the dressing room. They're over it.

Maybe a few of their fellow islanders could do the same.