A despondent Brendon McCullum contemplates stepping down as Lahore Qalander captain

With his team losing the sixth consecutive match in the ongoing Pakistan Super League on Thursday, Brendon McCullum shows disappointment in his team’s performance and considers his stepping down as a possible way out.

According to him, the Lahore Qalanders’s failure to deliver a holistic performance and win a single match in the 3rd edition of the league ultimately falls on him as the captain. So even though he has left no stone unturned to fix the situation, things have not been falling into place.

“Ultimately as captain, you’re responsible for the performances. I feel like I’ve done the same things that I do in any team that I’ve led, but unfortunately, that hasn’t resonated,” said the 36-year-old. As for the matter of captaincy, he added, “So that’s the question we’ve got to ask tonight as well – whether it’s better offloading it to someone else and seeing if we can get better results.”

The pressure of captaincy beginning to get to McCullum

It is clear from his words that he feels like his instructions or manner of leadership is somehow not connecting with the youngsters of the team, thus leading to the lack of cohesion. It was evident in the case of the Qalander bowlers in the last match against Islamabad United on Thursday.

“We bowled very poorly,” the former New Zealand captain said in the post-match presentation. Although he praised the batsmen, especially fellow Kiwi Anton Devcich (62 off 42) who helped put a commendable score of 163, he was not at all happy with the way they gave in without a fight. Except for veteran Sunil Narine’s 3 for 28, the rest of the bowling performance was indeed a no-show.

“It’s not what we’re about and I don’t mind losing, but you expect to be hard to beat. We’ve got some questions to ask tonight and that’s all the way through,” McCullum said. However, he will be leading the team in the Friday match against the Multan Sultans in Dubai.

The playoffs are quite out-of-reach now for the Qalandars and they are possibly looking towards yet another last spot finish in the league.