Time to rip open insults
Brendon McCullum: Declared with Greg McGee Mower Books RRP: $49.99
And so now we await the sequel: Ross Taylor — Following On. Just when you thought the embers had flickered out on the “Taylor Affair”, the recently retired Brendon McCullum has pulled a tin of kerosene out of the shed and fair poured it on. Whoosh! Upon finishing Declared, you are left with the sense that all those years of barbs, insults and brickbats hurled at him by sections of the media and public had turned to furuncles, and this was his chance to lance them. Decorum be damned. Taylor, McCullum’s predecessor as captain, wears a lot of the fallout. Yet when I re-read the most contentious chapters, it felt like Taylor was almost secondary, a bystander. McCullum’s real anger was directed at those advising him, those who manipulated the narrative to paint Taylor as an untainted saint and McCullum the devious sinner. It must have felt good to get it out but it will probably only serve to entrench previously held positions.
In truth, it is the only slightly laboured section of a fine book. There are times when McCullum would have been better served to ease off the throttle (particularly when he criticises Taylor for not going to South Africa, which feels like an appropriation of other critics’ opinions rather than his own) but, then again, that’s never been his way. He deals with the Chris Cairns saga skilfully and convincingly. In this section there is no ambiguity as to where his hatred is directed. One of the more fatuous arguments aired this week is that McCullum should have let sleeping dogs lie, but how often we criticise athletes for bland retellings of spectacular careers.
Declared is anything but bland. Where else, also, does a public figure get the chance to put forward their side in an unfiltered way other than a biography? Do you really expect him to write a biography and brush over the two most contentious stories of his career? You don’t have to buy what he’s saying, but at least you know who’s saying it. The real pearls of this book are found tucked away in less neonlit places, like his childhood in hardscrabble South Dunedin and the confessions of his shortcomings as a husband, father and team-mate. It humanises a man who spent a good portion of his career being painted as either a cartoon superhero or villain.