Daily Times

DUBAI: After six consecutive defeats and being knocked out of the race to play-offs of the Pakistan Super League, Lahore Qalandars finally appear to have wakened up as they won two matches back to back. But, it’s too late for them. However, for Brendon McCullum, the captain of Lahore, it is important to win remaining two games and stay focused. The New Zealander spoke to media after Lahore won against Karachi Kings in the one-over eliminator and he spoke his heart out on what went wrong in earlier games, how he thought of leaving captaincy and handling Umar Akmal.

“We probably should have won through those games if we had been honest in those crunch moments. We lost those key moments, if we could have won them, we could have won the three of the first six,” he said. “It was very disappointing,” he said while sharing his frustration over losing first six games. The former Kiwi captain said that what frustrated him the most was not the results but lack of application at times.

“I don’t mind losing too much but make it hard to beat. Play with as much passion and pride as you can, if the opposition is good enough to beat, then fair enough, but there were times there were questions on how big our application was,” he highlighted. He also confirmed that he thought of leaving the captaincy and when he made players realised that he was ready to do so, the players responded and stood up for the team. “When you are captain of the team you are judged based on the result. Even though if you are the best person for the job but if you are not able to reach the guys who you are meant to be leading and inspire them to perform better. I think mentioning that was very rare for everyone of that, then once the guys realized that I was prepared to that as well, the guys started to look how they can help the team,” Brendon mentioned. McCullum is now focused on Lahore’s remaining two games and want to win them to finish the tournament on a positive note for Lahore fans.

Published in Daily Times, March 13^th 2018.