A 3-2 series scoreline may make it hard to change coach but you don’t reward a failure of planning because the players clawed a bit back when it was too late
There’s a good origins-story-style video in the Sky Sports masterclass archive. Filmed at Edgbaston in 2016, it shows the blue-sky brothers, Brendon McCullum and Rob Key, back when the world was still young, looking sharp and chiselled, laughing and joshing on the outfield, and nominally discussing how to bat in T20 cricket.
And yes, the chemistry, well, the chemistry is overpowering. It almost feels like a romantic intrusion, the viewer cast as gooseberry. This is Coldplay kiss-cam energy. This is like watching Bacall and Bogart fall in love on screen. You know how to whistle don’t you, Keysey? You just put your lips together and enter into a transcendent game state.
Mainly the clip is a useful basic primer on McCullum’s own anti-philosophy of cricketing success. How, Key asks, does he prepare himself? Well, it’s about getting into a really relaxed state. And after that maintaining the really relaxed state.
There is technical stuff. “I try to hit it over there, sometimes over there, sometimes over there.” He has fast hands. What’s the deal with fast hands? “I don’t really know.” How about the pull shot? What’s that all about? “I think I … I don’t even know how I play it … I think it’s more of a … swivel.”
