Brendon McCullum: Nasser Hussain on the captain, batsman and man

Swashbuckling batsman, aggressive captain, and all-round good bloke… Nasser Hussain discusses the outgoing - in more ways than one - New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum.

It's a cliché to talk about cricketers being in the entertainment business but that's exactly what McCullum was in.

He was never there to plod along and get a score for himself - he was the original 'see ball, hit ball' guy who was there to show you what he could do.

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That came from his immense ability, though - it wasn't a case of Brendon waking up one morning and thinking 'I'm going to transform the game', he knew he had the skill to back it up.

Don't forget this is a man with a Test triple hundred, three more double hundreds, and 200 sixes in one-day international cricket!

His fast hands and fast feet have been incredible to watch, with some of his knocks - particularly the 77 from 25 balls he scored against England in the World Cup, when the opposition didn't know what had hit them - have been incredible.

It can be easy as a player and a captain to be consumed by the game but if you worry about getting out and play fearful cricket, you never express yourself.

McCullum never had that problem and always played fearless cricket, probably because it's in his nature to be a bit of a gambler, a bit of a risk taker.

Proof of that was that he often used up DRS reviews in the first over!

If Brendon batted for an hour-and-a-half he could change the game - but he definitely changed the game as a captain in the modern era.

He worked out that in order to win matches you had to take wickets and have catchers in place - in the 2015 World Cup he pretty much adopted Test-match fields.

You have to have the attack to deploy those fields - there's no point setting three slips and gully if your bowler is bowling leg-stump half volleys - and he had that in Trent Boult and Tim Southee.

Players responded to him, though, and bought into his ideas - I guess it was hard not to if he was attacking all the time and telling you do the same.

The other thing to mention is that he is a really nice guy.

I know that doesn't really matter in the world of professional sport but he is, and I think it is a real shame that we are losing someone like him at the peak of his powers.

At 34, going on 35, he could still have a good few more years left in international cricket and that's something the ICC and these T20 franchises around the world need to think about.

How will you remember McCullum? Let us know using the feedback form below. Then catch his final Test, against Australia, from 9.25pm, Friday, Sky Sports 2.