Brendon Barrie McCullum (born 27 September 1981 in Dunedin) is a New Zealand international cricketer, who plays for the Otago Volts at provincial level. He is a wicket-keeper, as well as an aggressive batsman who opens in One-day Internationals and is known for his fast scoring rate. His brother Nathan McCullum is also a first-class and international cricketer at provincial level, and their father Stu McCullum was a long-serving first-class player for Otago.
Both Brendon and Nathan attended King's High School, Dunedin.
McCullum also plays for Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League. He scored 158 not out in the inaugural match of the competition on 18 April 2008. The innings is currently the world highest score by a batsman in a Twenty20 match
He also has the amazing ability to play the 'ramp shot', which involves the batsmen squatting down and scooping deliveries back over the wicketkeepers head. Doing this shot in the 20/20 on the 28th February 2010, against Australia, he managed to hit Shaun Tait for six back over Brad Haddin's head on numerous occasions.
On 2 March 2008, before facing England for the test series, he was involved in the State Shield Final versus Auckland Aces, in scoring 170 runs for the Otago Volts to help beat the Aces at Eden Park's outer oval, and helped to chased down a daunting total of 310 for 7, he broke multiple State Shield batting records
On 24 January 2009, he lined up for New South Wales in the final of Australia's KFC Twenty20 Big Bash. This was an exercise to allow him to be eligible to play for them in the Twenty20 Champions League. This sparked criticism however despite opinion States are permitted to have one overseas player in their squad. McCullum also donated his match fee from the game to Otago Junior Cricket.
