The New Zealand team has won the title of Women's T20 World Cup 2024. This team has become world champion for the first time by defeating South Africa in the final held in Dubai. Before this, no New Zealand team, whether men or women, had won the World Cup. Behind this was the hard work of the players but one more person had an important contribution in achieving this historic feat. That person is none other than the team's assistant coach and former New Zealand cricketer Craig McMillan. McMillan, who once looked for a job as a salesman to feed his family, has now helped New Zealand win the World Trophy. Let us know his story.

Why did McMillan want to become a salesman?

Craig McMillan was a famous all-rounder of his time. McMillan was dropped from the team after the 2003 World Cup. However, his contract was continuing and he kept getting to play matches from time to time. But due to poor form he could not perform well. Finally in 2005 the board also snatched the contract from him. Due to this his income completely ended. McMillan had revealed in an interview that due to this, income of about 1 lakh dollars was lost in a moment. Apart from this, he also got paid for playing matches.

McMillan was very angry due to the loss of this income because he was among the top-20 cricketers of his country for the last 10 years. He was 30 years old at that time and his daughter was also born at the same time. In such a situation, being suddenly unemployed became difficult for him to run his family. Then he decided to work as a salesman. For this he gave many interviews.

McMillan told that these job interviews were scarier for him than facing the fast balls of Brett Lee and Shoaib Akhtar. This thing also motivated him to return to his team. He worked hard again and made a comeback in 2006 with a stellar performance. He also became a part of the 2007 ODI World Cup team.

Craig McMillan's career

Craig McMillan played a total of 260 international matches for New Zealand between 1997 and 2007. During this period, McMillan scored 3116 runs at an average of 38 in 55 Tests and also took 28 wickets. He scored 4707 runs in 197 ODIs for his team and took 49 wickets. He scored 187 runs in 8 T20 matches. After retirement, he tried his hand in coaching. McMillan was also the batting coach of the New Zealand men's team between 2014 and 2019. It was during his coaching that New Zealand played the final of the ODI World Cup in 2019. In June this year, she was appointed assistant coach of the women's cricket team for 2 years.