The marauding match-winner

"When I was signed for US$700,000 I was obviously blown away, and having slept on it, it's a great feeling and it's nice to get the recognition." Those were Brendon McCullum's words when he was signed by Kolkata Knight Riders for the IPL, and within an hour of the start of the tournament, he proved the amount was entirely justified. With his audacious 73-ball 158, McCullum became the first batsman to top 150 in a Twenty20 game, and those who have followed his career - especially his recent form - won't be entirely surprised that he has outshone some of the more glamorous big-hitters in the IPL so far.

Throughout the 2007-08 season McCullum has been outstanding for New Zealand, averaging more than 53, at a stunning strike-rate of 109. In 14 games during this period, he has scored half the number of 50-plus scores that he has managed in his entire six-and-a-half-year ODI career. Bowlers have struggled to devise a strategy against a batsman who has made a habit of bludgeoning them from well outside the crease.

McCullum's talent and ball-striking ability have never been in doubt, but it's only over the last 16 months that he has at last begun to live up to his potential as a batsman. Till 2006 his stats were pretty ordinary; since then, the average has almost doubled, while the strike-rate has jumped to more than a run a ball as well.

Despite his ordinary numbers through the first four years of his ODI career, McCullum remains one of New Zealand's best match-winners over the last six years. Nathan Astle and Stephen Fleming have both averaged more in wins, but neither has matched McCullum's scoring-rate, which is higher even than Chris Cairns'.

In fact, over the last three years McCullum has done enough to be compared to some of the best batsmen in the world, not just in New Zealand. The rate at which he scores has ensured that the team has usually won when he has been among the runs. Since 2005 he averages nearly 52, at a strike-rate of 126, in ODIs that New Zealand have won. In losses, on the other hand, his average plummets to 18, and strike-rate to 77.

Combine the average and the strike-rate (multiply the average by the runs scored per ball), and McCullum's numbers are next only to those of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who has been stunning in Indian wins.

Interestingly, there's another wicketkeeper in the top five as well - South Africa's Mark Boucher has a 50-plus average and a 100-plus strike-rate as well, which puts him ahead of top-class batsmen like Ricky Ponting and Mahela Jayawardene.

Among wicketkeeper-batsmen, McCullum and Dhoni have been the cream of the crop over the last 15 months. Adam Gilchrist only comes in fourth, after Boucher.

The 13 sixes McCullum slammed in his 158 is the record for a Twenty20 innings, and it highlights his penchant for clearing the boundary. The small grounds in New Zealand may have been a factor, but that can only partially explain the fact that McCullum has struck 59 sixes in 1621 deliveries in ODIs since 2005, which works out to a healthy rate of 27 deliveries per six.

The only batsman with a better rate of hitting sixes is Pakistan's Shahid Afridi, who has struck one at a ridiculous rate of 12.3 deliveries. However, Afridi's frenetic hitting has come at the cost of consistency - he has only averaged 24 during this period.