May 06, 2009 12:54 AM
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(Updated May 06, 2009 01:26 PM)
The saddest part of this tournament has been watching Brendon McCullumslowly go to pieces. The swaggering, tattooed hard-hitting batsman hasbecome almost a thing of memory, replaced by a lonely figure wearing anincreasingly haunted look as his team stumbles from one nightmare toanother.
His trials have not been on the field alone; they have come in thepress conferences, where he has attempted to explain the inexplicable.At Port Elizabeth, he snapped at a journalist who asked him whether theexodus of Sanjay Bangar and Aakash Chopra was a sign the team wouldcrack down on poor performers. "What are you trying to get at, mate?"was the terse reply. In Durban last week, asked whether hisannouncement that he would quit as captain was an emotional reaction, he said, "That's your call. Captains all over the world feel thepressure and I think should be accountable."
Like any top sportsmen, McCullum is a very competitive man and thoughhis national side, New Zealand, don't win everything, they don't loseas badly as Kolkata Knight Riders or look as pathetic. And he has nevercaptained before. "It hurts 20 times more when you lose as a captain, "he has said. Especially captain of a team that can't bat, can't bowland can't field itself through to a win.
