gets the monkey off his back
Neil Manthorp in Auckland Cricket
The heaviest burden in sport is the weight of expectation, and the heaviest burden of all is the one you place on yourself. Sons of great sportsmen are understood to suffer in the shadow of their fathers, but the truth is different. They place that burden upon themselves mostly. Their fathers would prefer them to be doctors.
For the amount of expectation Daryll John Cullinan has placed upon himself through his career, his father might have been Graeme Pollock and his grandfather Don Bradman.
Schoolboy feats aside, Cullinan first knew he was different when he scored a first-class century for Border at the age of 16 years and 304 days. Thereafter, some say, his battle to fulfil his expectations has been impossibly uphill. There was precious little enjoyment in his early career, because he always knew he was different and he simply couldn’t accept failure.
He was seen as selfish because he didn’t appear to share in team triumph. He has always enjoyed team success, of course, but his quest for the fulfilment of his personal talent overwhelmed him.
Even when he scored 337 for Transvaal against Northern Transvaal at the beginning of the 1993/94 season, he dreamed of more. Test cricket was the ultimate.
“Secretely it was a dream I always had, having got the first-class record, but I honestly never thought I’d do it. I thought holding the domestic record was probably pretty good, and maybe I’d settle for that,” he said after his record-breaking 275 not out.
Complex is one of many words Cullinan has grown sick of, but his emotions at removing Graeme Pollock from the record books shows not only his complexity, but also the deep sensitivity that everybody who knows him well has always said he has.
“The fact that it was Graeme’s record makes me a bit embarrassed. He only played 23 Tests. Who knows what he could have done if he’d got his full quota? Because of that it was with mixed emotions that I passed his record.
“He was my boyhood hero and idol. I’ve always admired Viv Richards but when I was growing up, Graeme [Pollock]was the man everyone looked up to and spoke about.
“When I was first taken by my father to watch first-class cricket at the Wanderers, it was Graeme we were going to see. I must say there was some sadness when I did it. He is one of the greats of all time,” Cullinan said.
With this innings, Cullinan has at least got one monkey off his back. His career average leapt from 37.7 to 41.6 and is never likely to drop below 40 again, the accepted benchmark for players of rare abiliy. Hopefully for South African cricket, there are no more monkeys left at all.
“I think he opened a very big door with that innings,” Bob Woolmer says. “Anybody with a Test double century never quite thinks the same way again. The confidence they get can do wonders . some people may have perceived Daryll to have under-performed, given his ability, but the record should be straight now.”
Woolmer, like everybody else, is wary of false dawns. He says only that Cullinan has now entered the ranks of the “very good”. What he is thinking, and we are hoping, is that Daryll Cullinan has opened the door to greatness.