Stumped: McCullum’s
Once upon a time in the weird and wacky world of football lived a man called Claude Anelka. Young Claude had a starry brother called Nicolas who played for Arsenal and France. Claude loved his brother and at times had been his agent. But there were days, of course, when Claude wanted to be famous too.
He spun some records as a DJ but being French was not enough to turn Claude from pumpkin into Daft Punk. Then one day he had an idea. Claude offered up £300,000 to any club that would put him in charge of their football team.
Claude was turned down by one or two, but then Raith Rovers came along and said, ‘‘What a good idea.’’ Suddenly Claude could make his dreams come true. So he got rid of a lot of players and brought in all sorts of young men from Paris, some of whom were rumoured to only play seven-a-side football.
The Raith Revolution was under way. But sadly the revolution stopped turning when it reached the bottom. Raith kept losing and losing. Of their first 10 games of the season, they lost nine games and drew one. The supporters, who loved their club, turned on poor Claude who now felt even less loved.
It’s a sad story and Claude would later admit that he was ‘‘pretentious’’ and ‘‘knew nothing about coaching.’’ But it also seems to me to be something of a fable. Teams that look for the miracle cure, that appoint the snake oil salesman, can often end up in an even bigger hole.
That is the thought which occurred to me when England announced Brendon McCullum as the coach of their test team in surely the most bizarre coaching appointment in the history of cricket. On the plus side, England are already in such a big hole that it is surely impossible for McCullum to make it any bigger.
It is hard, though, not to wonder what England were thinking. McCullum has never coached a cricket team in the longer format of the game. It is only three years ago that he retired from cricket after two years as captain of Lahore Qalanders in which they finished bottom of the Pakistan league in both seasons.
Yet one of McCullum’s greatest strengths is his optimism. A few months before his retirement he had declared; ‘‘I will continue to play T20 cricket in 2019 in various competitions around the world and will then look to transition into a coaching career.’’
Now he was transitioning. The glorious thing about the Indian Premier League is that they will appoint anyone as coach so long as they are famous.
So far McCullum’s stint as coach with Kolkata rather reflects his habits with the bat. The team goes through periods where it can scarcely scratch a result out of the dirt, provoking
McCullum has never coached a cricket team in the longer format of the game.