The charismatic captain has been a divisive character through his career and has polarised public opinion.

Some believe he can do no wrong, some that he's wasted his obvious potential and given his wicket away too freely.

His batting – and scores – have improved on the back of plenty of work on his defensive game, but arguably his biggest contribution has been as the skipper.

After a bumpy beginning where he took over from Ross Taylor in a highly publicised PR disaster, McCullum has made every post a winner.

To continue the racing analogy, he's a punter with a golden touch and he's backed plenty of winners recently.

He's encouraged the gambling attitude within his side and they've all got money on the captain.

The "team-first" mantra has a distinct All Blacks feel to it; the team is more important, and better, than the sum of its parts.

His teammates can't speak highly enough of McCullum, his leadership style and about the bloke himself.

"He's a great leader," said allrounder Corey Anderson.

"The thing that he's really good at is understanding players. I think he knows how to get the best out of all the guys and what makes each player tick.

"He's a gambler and he loves going for it and he's throwing that on everyone else too. He's the perfect guy to be doing the job."

Young wicketkeeper batsman Tom Latham said McCullum's lead by example attitude was key to earning and keeping the respect of the entire Black Caps set-up.

"That's the way he and Hess [coach Mike Hesson] have brought this team forward, with that team-first attitude and by setting a high example.

"You can see by the way he runs around the field and dives around, he puts the team first. He's been great for the team and hopefully he can continue it through for the next few months and through the World Cup. To see one of the older guys, especially the captain, running around like that, of course that makes us do it too."

But it's not just the young pups looking up to McCullum, the team's old dog said he's learning new tricks.

"For someone like me, I gravitate towards an example," said Daniel Vettori, the side's former captain and its oldest player.

"If his standards are that high, then we can't go below that can we? Particularly as a bowler, when you have the captain trying so hard and throwing himself into the hoardings it really means you want your performance to elevate to the same level as his."

Vettori said McCullum and Hesson had instilled a culture of high standards, but also of a relaxed confidence.

He said that calmness would be crucial in the pressure-cooker situation of  a home World Cup.

Taylor said the high standards  weren't just creating hungry and driven younger players, but were also getting more out of the senior players.

"We all have high standards, but it's about reaching them," he said. "The time you're satisfied with how you're playing, then you're not pushing yourself that extra bit."

The deliberate move to improve in attitude and desire has clearly helped their cricket, but it's also galvanised public support.

Often fickle, the cricketing public are behind this team as much as they've ever been.

Taylor said part of that would be the home World Cup, but acknowledged the team had earned the public's respect.

"It's a nice place to be," he said. "We'd rather be here than the other way around."

And while the public are on board, few back McCullum as much as the management group and the players.

"The majority of his decisions over the last 12-18 months have been the right ones," Anderson said.

"He's scored a truck-load of runs, he chases every single ball to the fence so when he asks you to do it, you do it. We'll follow him wherever we can at the moment."