Kane Williamson, the current New Zealand captain, has praised the legacy left behind by his predecessor Brendon McCullum, highlighting the former skipper’s ability to approach formats by defying convention.

In an Instagram live with Tamim Iqbal, Bangladesh’s new ODI captain, Williamson spoke about how McCullum’s retirement was a “two-fold” loss for New Zealand, both in his capacity as a player and a leader.

“Brendon led superbly well for such a long period of time and, from my perspective, it was a great opportunity to learn a lot from him,” Williamson said. “A lot of that is naturally, by being in the presence and seeing how the team operates. The challenges when Brendon left were, you are now playing without him as a player and as a leader, sort of two-fold.”

When asked by Tamim whether McCullum treated an ODI like a 40-over game, especially during the 2015 World Cup, Williamson said that the former skipper used to sometimes approach both ODIs and Tests differently.

“Maybe in his own mind,” said Williamson. “Sometimes he saw it [ODIs] as a T20 and Test cricket as a one-day game even, and he would go out and score incredibly quickly.

“That clearly was brilliant; it had a huge impact to the success of our side. It was Brendon playing his natural game within the role that was important, and that was to go out and win games quickly and make a real impact. One day, you knew he’d come out and it’ll help a long way in winning a game. If it didn’t come off, you knew that there would be every chance it would come off in the next game.

“Brendon was so gifted in his approach to the game, which really complimented the team in a big way.”