Sometimes McCullum saw Tests as ODI games, says Williamson

Wellington, May 22 (IANS) New Zealand captain Kane Williamson hailed his predecessor Brendon McCullum for the impact the latter has had on the team and his approach to the game. McCullum was captain of the Kiwis in all formats until 2016.

"Brendon led superbly well for such a long period of time and it was a great opportunity for me to learn from him. The challenges when Brendon left was two-fold, you are now playing without him as a player and as a leader. One of the challenges was that we wanted to continue to grow as a group," said Williamson in an Instagram live video chat with Bangladesh opener Tamim Iqbal.

"There is change always and to embrace it you need to be authentic in leadership. In the case of our team there are other leaders in our team who can help younger players when they come through."

Tamim asked Williamson if the story he heard of McCullum seeing a 50-over game as a 40-over game was true. "In his own mind maybe," said Williamson. "Sometimes he saw it as a T20 and Test cricket as an ODI game and then he would go out and score incredibly quickly," he said.

"Brendon played his natural game and it brought a lot of success to us, Brendon was so gifted in his approach to the game, it really complimented the team in a big way."

McCullum was known for his aggressive style of batting, famously breaking the record for the fastest Test century in his last Test match.