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.
McCullum to complain that his players aren’t bashing boundaries like he asked them to.
Then suddenly they will go on a run where anything seems possible. It’s a roller coaster ride. Presumably that was what attracted Rob Key, the managing director of England cricket, when he made the astonishing announcement last week. ‘‘Buckle up and get ready for the ride,’’ said Key.
Presumably Key, who has as little experience in his job as McCullum does in his, reckons that if England are going to lose, they might as well lose entertainingly. After all, the test side has won only one of its previous 17 matches. It has lost 11 and drawn the other five.
With such an appalling record it was perhaps disingenuous of McCullum to say: ‘‘I wasn’t interested in a cushy gig.’’
A non-cushy gig would have been coaching Australia or India or New Zealand. These are top sides with fine records to maintain. Keeping teams at the top is a huge challenge. It is far less risky to pick a team up at the basement and try to turn them around. The worst that can happen is that you leave them where you find them.
But perhaps the most confronting thing for many Kiwis is the question of loyalty. The usurping of Ross Taylor and premature retirement from international cricket suggests to me that McCullum’s loyalty is primarily to himself. The fact that he is now prepared to coach against his own country rather emphasises that fact.
Wayne Smith told a story recently about Roy Keane leaving Manchester United for Celtic. Keane told the All Blacks players and coaches that as soon as he pulled the Celtic jersey over his head, he realised it was the wrong jersey.
Smith said: ‘‘It made a real impression on me. I kept thinking about that. If I pulled the white jersey over my head would it be the right jersey for me. And I decided at that point that I probably wouldn’t coach against the All Blacks. It’s not set in concrete. But that’s how I felt. It would have been the wrong jersey to pull over the head.’’
Obviously McCullum does not feel the same. That is his professional prerogative. None of which means the timing of his appointment is particularly decent. His first gig will be to coach England against New Zealand in the upcoming test series which starts at Lords on June 2. McCullum will have captained many of the players he is now coaching against.
Many in the game of cricket believe it to be astonishing that England could overlook a man like Gary Kirsten, who has a proven record as a test coach, in favour of a man who ‘‘firmly believe(s) that test cricket won’t be around in time, because there’s only so many teams that can afford to play it’’.
That is a perfectly decent philosophy, but again it suggests a man who perhaps does not fully believe in the cause. I wish McCullum every success, not least because test cricket needs a competitive England team if it is to prosper, but it remains a bewildering appointment on so many levels.