McCullum named NZ sportsman of the year

Brendon McCullum has been named the New Zealand sportsman of the year, the first cricketer to win the title since Martin Crowe in 1991.

New Zealand enjoyed unprecedented success under McCullum in 2014, winning five Tests from nine matches, a national record. It included series victories against India and West Indies, as well as a drawn series against Pakistan in UAE. In ODIs, the team crushed India 4-0 in January 2014, and secured a hard-fought 3-2 win against Pakistan under spin-heavy conditions in UAE in December.

Individually, McCullum scored 1164 Test runs - the most by a New Zealand batsman in a calendar year - at 72.75 and finished as the fourth-highest run scorer in 2014, despite playing the fewest innings among the top 10 batsmen in the list.

McCullum's stellar year began at Eden Park, where his 224 set New Zealand up for a 40-run win against India. In the second Test at the Basin Reserve, New Zealand were struggling at 94 for 5 in the second innings, still trailing by 152 runs, when McCullum scripted a stunning turnaround. He put up a 352-run partnership with BJ Watling, and eventually became the first New Zealand player to score a triple-hundred, helping his team to a draw and a series win.

McCullum had a quiet tour of West Indies, scoring just 87 runs from three Tests, but New Zealand clinched the series 2-1, their first series win away from home against a top-eight nation in 12 years.

In UAE, New Zealand surrendered the first Test against Pakistan by 248 runs, but in the third Test in Sharjah, McCullum blasted a 188-ball 202, ensuring the visitors leveled the series with an innings and 80-run win. He capped off a fine year by scoring 195 against Sri Lanka in Christchurch, where he also knocked off the record for the fastest hundred by a New Zealand player in Tests, off 74 balls. The innings also ensured that McCullum become the first ever New Zealand batsman to amass 1000 Test runs in a calendar year.