Cricket: Opinion: McCullum simply playing by Australian rules

Don't blame Brendon McCullum. Blame the rules.

You can almost hear the wowsers groaning and lamenting, "It's just not cricket".

Just how is it possible McCullum can play for Otago on Wednesday and then for New South Wales in the final of Australian domestic twenty/20 competition tonight?

It is a fair point because it seems absurd.

McCullum will not play for Otago in its final one-day round-robin match against Wellington in Invercargill tomorrow.

Instead he will play for New South Wales, which has qualified for the lucrative Indian Champions League, thereby guaranteeing himself the chance of playing in the $NZ11 million tournament in October if his Indian Premier League (IPL) team, Kolkata, fails to qualify.

I would hesitate to criticise McCullum for wanting to play on the big stage for the big prizes.

He is one of a handful of players in the world who is capable of hammering bowling attacks into complete submission with sustained hitting power.

In the grand opening of the IPL, McCullum whacked 158 off 73 balls for Kolkata, and last year he all but single-handedly won Otago its first title in 20 years when he smashed an incredible 170 off 108 balls in the one-day final.

That innings included a staggering 19 fours and seven sixes.

I would also steer away from accusing him of disloyalty.

Since returning to Otago last season, McCullum has made himself available when he could, including taking an early-morning flight to link up with the side the morning after the deciding one-day game against the West Indies in Napier.

He genuinely seems committed to playing for his home province and has decided to donate his match fee, believed to be about $6000, to the Otago Cricket Association's youth development programme.

But loyalty has its price. McCullum would not have been available for the finals because of national commitments and, with Otago having already secured a place in the semifinals, the offer to play in the high-profile Champions League proved irresistible.

You cannot blame New South Wales for wanting to bolster its ranks, nor the promoters. If you want to sell movie tickets you get Tom Cruise, not Corey Feldman.

McCullum is a proven match-winner. He will help attract the punters through the gates and keep the sponsors, broadcasters and advertisers happy.

He is just exploiting the Australian rules, which allow New South Wales to whistle him in for the final, and the Champions League rules, which allow teams to field four overseas players, the same as in the Indian Premier League.

Those eligibility rules need to be cleared up because it is not a good look when McCullum can play for Otago and New South Wales in the same week.

It is a significant issue and a challenge for the game's law-makers.

The IPL franchises pay top dollars for their overseas players - McCullum's contract with the Kolkata Knight Riders is worth $950,000 - and they will want their pound of flesh.

It is probably a question of when, not if, it starts interfering with the international game.

How long before jaded international players give away their relatively meagre international salaries and opt for the less intensive and financially fruitful lifestyle of a twenty/20 contracted player?

In the meantime, the cricket fans in Invercargill have been deprived of seeing one of the most destructive one-day batsmen in the world.

And, if Otago loses the match and Canterbury wins against Northern Districts tomorrow, the Volts will be heading to Christchurch to play the semifinal.

That will be a painful barb for the Dunedin-based Otago faithful to bear.

 

 

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