[imagesource: Mandar Deshpande]

Daryll Cullinan was a prodigious talent who burst onto the scene in the mid-1980s, becoming the youngest South African to score a first-class century at the age of 16 years and 304 days in 1985.

Like another man who appeared destined for greatness from a young age, Herschelle Gibbs, Cullinan’s career probably fell slightly short of the hype. The middle-order batter’s fall from grace in the years following his retirement has also been swift and stories abound of how he was far from the perfect team player.

Ahead of the release of Faf: Through Fire, former Proteas skipper Faf du Plessis has laid bare just how much of a doos Cullinan really was.

SA Cricket Mag has an excerpt from the book where du Plessis details how he signed a rookie contract for the Titans and was in awe of his new teammate. Eager to learn from Cullinan, du Plessis sat next to him in the changing room during the team’s first match.

Coach Dave Nosworthy was addressing the team when Cullinan raised his hand and told him to pipe down:

Then he turned to me: “What the f**k are you doing next to me? Why the f**k are you sitting here?”

The dressing room fell dead silent. Nos tried to brush off this interruption and continued talking. But after a minute or so, Daryll interrupted again: “No, stop.”

He then turned to me: “Youngster, take your bag and f**k off! Jacques Rudolph is a Test player, and he’s not even sitting next to me. He sits on a chair, but you sit on a f**king sofa.

I froze.”Take your bag and sit in the bath,” he continued to scold. “You don’t deserve to sit here.”

Take your pick of the world’s worst modern-day teammate – a certain Manchester United player who refuses to come on as a substitute and leaves matches before the final whistle comes to mind – and chances are they can’t rival that.

Du Plessis says the incident helped him foster a better team environment when he eventually became Proteas skipper, although the likes of Mark Boucher and Graeme Smith would never have allowed behaviour like Cullinan’s to occur.

That’s not to say that du Plessis and those two saw eye to eye at all times. In fact, the autobiography, due out on Friday (October 28), explicitly calls those two out for speeding up his retirement from test cricket.

Back to Cullinan, who was also described as a terrible teammate in Gibbs’ autobiography, To the Point. Gibbs claims that Cullinan ratted him out, along with teammates Paul Adams, Roger Telemachus, Andre Nel, Justin Kemp, and physio Craig Smith, for smoking marijuana during the 2001 tour to the Caribbean.

He did so after an altercation with Telemachus. Cricinfo below:

Cullinan was so “apoplectic with rage” that he stormed back to the hotel and Gibbs had to field in his place. Then, Gibbs claims, Cullinan told [team manager Goolam] Rajah that he was “tired of this team” and that they had smoked marijuana.

Cullinan denied this was the case and said that the wife of Graham Ford, the coach, had caught a whiff from her adjacent room and told her husband.

Whichever way you look at it, there are multiple former teammates of Cullinan’s, some who prefer to speak off the record, that have questioned his attitude in a team environment.

[sources:sacricketmag&cricinfo]