Monday 1 May 2017 19:59, UK
Ahead of Gujarat Lions' clash with Royal Challengers Bangalore, Mark Butcher met up with Brendon McCullum to discuss the life of a ‘T20 mercenary’, his friendship with Jason Roy and the perils of wearing a sunhat in a night game!
McCullum also talked about the spirit of the game and the need for "uniform payments" for the world's top players to help preserve Test cricket.
Read on for all of that and more from Butch's poolside chat with the former New Zealand skipper…
Butch: It's not too bad this T20 mercenary lark, is it?
McCullum: No, it's a good gig - unashamedly so! It's different, I guess you do your hard work in international cricket and then at the back end of your career you get the chance to travel the world, meet some great people, play in some good teams and experience different cultures. So, yeah, it's pretty good fun.
I spoke to you two years ago when you had a yellow Chennai shirt on and you were the saint, the Mother Teresa of cricket at the time. You'd just retired, New Zealand had been lauded for their attitude to international cricket and it was all put at your door. Now people might be thinking you're just doing it for the money. It's switched on its head…
That's just the way the game is. The same traits and beliefs that I had as captain of New Zealand are still firmly in place today. Just because you play around the world in different teams, you can still play in that same spirit. In terms of earning money around the world, I guess that's the thing, people turn up and they watch you play, the broadcasters generate revenue and the players are a big part of that and they get paid along the way.
Talking of the right spirit, you were out in the middle of the night in a floppy hat and sun glasses and it cost your team…
I didn't have the casual sunnies on! That was the next game, I was embracing the T20 mercenary! The floppy hat though, there is actually a reason behind that. The other caps don't fit me and I'm not like you English fellas wearing no hat out on the field so I can get my face on TV!
Anyone in particular you're thinking of there?
J-Roy! His hats don't actually fit him anyway.
You guys seem to have struck up quite a decent friendship, you were together in the Pakistan Super League as well, weren't you?
Yeah, I've always watched him play and thought 'jeez, he's an incredible striker of the ball and a real talent'. I never really knew him playing against him but in the PSL we were on the same team, Lahore Qalanders, and instantly struck it off and now to come to the IPL and hook up again; it'll be one of those relationships that lasts long after cricket's finished.
Just seriously for a minute, on the money side of things. I know that it can be very difficult in terms of the choices that players have to make, particularly players coming from New Zealand, South Africa, West Indies. You get tossed the idea of looking after your future with money or play international cricket. What's your take on that?
It's interesting and I think now that I've stepped away from [international cricket] you can actually have an opinion on it. While you're a cricketer, people don't want to hear you say that you aren't being paid accordingly.
Guys earn decent money but I look at Kane Williamson and I think he's a top three player in all forms of the game across the world. His contract payment for a year is the equivalent of one tournament around the world and that's not just the IPL. It used to be just the IPL but now you've got the PSL, CPL, the South African league, the Big Bash and now, obviously, we'll have the English league as well.
So, you've got different opportunities to earn good money around the world and if we're serious about preserving Test cricket, we've got to find a way to uniform payments so that guys like Kane Williamson, rather than being on 250k to 300k New Zealand dollars a year and being one of the best cricketers in the world, is competing against the likes of Steve Smith, Virat Kohli and Joe Root.
I don't know what they're on but I'm guessing it's considerably more than that. You need to find a way to uniform those payments so that those guys are paid accordingly and also on a level playing field, so that when they go out there to compete they don't feel subservient to the guys they're up against.
