It was probably to be expected that an England team coached by a Kiwi should tune up for the Test series that gets under way in New Zealand on Thursday by crashing into some tackle bags.
Rugby runs through the blood in these parts and at one stage Brendon McCullum came close to throwing his lot in with the sport himself. As the spirit guide for England’s white-ball transformation, and now a more direct architect of the Test side’s recent rebirth, it’s a case of what might have been.
From a working-class family in Dunedin, the son of Otago cricketer Stuart McCullum, he was clearly a rugby player of some promise. An ebullient captain of the first XV at King’s High School, McCullum was even selected ahead of Dan Carter at fly-half for the South Island Secondary Schools side aged 18.
“That doesn’t mean I was better than him,” McCullum said recently. “It just means the selectors were completely bonkers. But it’s still a great story. I sat next to DC on a plane the other day but I didn’t bring it up – because he knows.”
Two years later, even when McCullum was already part of the New Zealand cricket academy and on the brink of a national call-up, the rugby dream was still being pursued. That was until Sir Richard Hadlee, chief selector, got wind he had been training with Southern Rugby one evening and put the call in.
“Yeah, he was a bit grumpy, but I managed to calm him down a bit,” recalled McCullum, after being told his chances of a national contract would be jeopardised if he continued. The story goes that Hadlee even contacted McCullum’s friends, ordering them not to lend him any boots.
As England’s head coach, McCullum has stressed that players should rediscover the joy of playing sport growing up. Hence when a handful of them spotted the rugby gear at the gym in Mount Maunganui this week – a facility also used by the All Blacks Sevens teams – they couldn’t help themselves.
And McCullum’s younger self? The picture painted by his former coach and mentor at Kings, Darryl Paterson, sees a fair few of the threads which have run through both McCullum the cricketer and now the man setting the tone for England with Ben Stokes.
“He just had incredible self belief,” Paterson says. “As a rugby player, his big strength was as a defensive five-eighth and he would knock over much bigger guys.
“And he would take risks because he was so confident. Most days they came off, some days they didn’t, but that was fine. And you can see that now with the way he has this England cricket team playing.
“I remember him telling me he wanted to be the best player on the field but he was never arrogant and he wouldn’t say that to anyone else. He was all about his mates – you won’t get a more loyal guy.
“As captain of our rugby team, he had the whole changing room looking up to him because he would just repeatedly tell them how good they were. He’d never criticise anyone who failed if they played with a positive attitude. It’s a cliche, but they would have followed him over the top of the trenches.”
And the cricketer? “He played one game for the third team that I coached, aged 13 or 14, and just peppered the building next door to the ground with sixes on his way to a century,” says Paterson. “Straight away he went up to the first XI to play with the older boys.
“He was a wicketkeeper-batsmen, barely taller than the stumps, and would stand up to some pretty quick bowlers. That scoop shot he became synonymous with later on, he was dabbling with that back then in the nets. I remember the ball just missing his head but he wasn’t remotely fazed by it.”
Back in 2014, just the week before he became the first New Zealander to score a Test triple-century, McCullum publicly thanked Paterson for his mentorship as part of a national campaign to promote the country’s teachers.
This went beyond sport and academia too, McCullum having been a bit of a tearaway at times and even suspended once after organising elaborate parties for his mates.
Paterson says: “Yeah, he played hard and partied hard. He had some decisions to make around his own welfare – a bit of a crossroads, if he was going to continue the path to a sporting career. I know he still likes a beer and a party … but I hope I gave him some good advice.”
Was Paterson surprised by McCullum taking the England job? “Yes, because he’s a proud Kiwi. But I’m certainly not surprised with his impact and with Ben Stokes he has an ally for his thinking and vision. They could well have that attitude and get bowled out for 100 – but it won’t change Brendon.”
And how far could he have gone had rugby won out? “I don’t know if he’d have become an All Black, but he’d probably have played for Otago.
“So yeah, he did have a serious dilemma after he left school. That was until Hadlee told him if he laced his boots up on a Saturday, he could wave his cricket contract goodbye.”
