Brendon Barrie McCullum is a former New Zealand cricketer and the current head coach of the England Cricket Test team. Representing New Zealand, he played all formats, including as captain. McCullum was renowned for his quick scoring, notably recording the fastest test century of all time. He is considered one of the most successful batsmen and captains of New Zealand cricket. As captain, he led New Zealand to the finals of the 2015 Cricket World Cup, where they lost to Australia by 7 wickets. He retired from all forms of cricket in August 2019.
McCullum is the former leading run scorer in Twenty20 International (T20I) cricket and is the first and so far only one of the two Kiwi players to have scored two T20I centuries and 2000 runs in T20I (apart from Martin Guptill). His innings of 123 against Bangladesh in the 2012 ICC World Twenty20 is currently the highest score made by a New Zealand cricketer in the T20I format, and the highest score by a batsman in the history of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup. He became the first New Zealander to score a triple hundred in a Test, 302 runs against India on 18 February 2014. In 2014, he also became the first New Zealander to score 1000 test runs in a calendar year (1164). The record was bettered by Kane Williamson with 1172 runs in 2015. In his last Test outing on 20 February 2016, McCullum posted the fastest ever Test century, in 54 balls, beating the 56-ball record held by his hero, Vivian Richards, scoring a total of 145 off 79 balls. He also holds the record for the fastest 150 in Test cricket.
McCullum was the first batsman to score 2 tons in T20I. He was the previous record holder for the highest individual score in a Twenty20 International (123 against Bangladesh in 2012) and third highest individual score in all Twenty20 cricket (158 not out for the Kolkata Knight Riders against the Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2008) which was later surpassed by Aaron Finch (172 against Zimbabwe for Australia) and Chris Gayle (175 against the Pune Warriors India) for the Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2013 edition of IPL. He played for the Kolkata Knight Riders from 2008 to 2010 and again from 2012 to 2013, while in between he played for the Kochi Tuskers Kerala. He played the 2014 and 2015 seasons for the Chennai Super Kings. McCullum was a wicket-keeper until 2013.
On 22 December 2015, McCullum announced he would retire from international cricket at the end of the southern summer, joining his brother who had earlier that year announced his retirement from all forms of cricket. He is also the highest (170) runs scorer by a captain in his farewell test and first captain to score a century in his farewell test. He retired from all international cricket on 24 February 2016.
