Brendon McCullum Defends 'Fearless Approach' After World Cup Final Defeat

Skipper Brendon McCullum is adamant there will be no backing down in the Black Caps' fearless approach in the wake of their crushing World Cup final defeat to Australia. (Australia Win World Cup)

Australia powered to a seven-wicket defeat of New Zealand before a record 93,013 Melbourne Cricket Ground crowd, winning their fifth World Cup crown with 16.5 overs to spare.

McCullum's Black Caps stormed into their first World Cup on the back of an unbeaten eight-match run playing an aggressive swashbuckling brand of cricket. (McCullum Keeps ODI Retirement Suspense alive)

But the scale of New Zealand's defeat in the final, including McCullum's dismissal for a three-ball duck in the opening over, led to questions over whether they should temper their bold playing style, a suggestion the skipper flatly rejected.

"No, no, you don't change your style of play. Look, for us to develop into the team that we want to be in international cricket, we have to play like that," he told his post-match media conference.

"I think there's an element of fearlessness about how we play, which has been an effect on other teams, as well. (Fitting Finale for Michael Clarke)

"I think if you ask most of the teams in this tournament what they think of how we've played the game, they would be very respectful of how we've gone about it.

"It's what gives us our greatest pleasure, as well, and sometimes we're going to come undone, but for us to compete against the big teams on regular occasions and for us to be able to develop into the team we want to be, we need to keep playing this brand of cricket.

"We'll get better at doing it the more we become accustomed to it, and I guess a stronger depth of players we develop in the same sort of mould of cricket as we have.

"So yeah, we're not going to change."