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Martin Crowe passes away
- Thread starter Dan
- Start date
Meridio
International Regular
R.I.P Martin.
Brilliant batsman. I was a bit young to truly appreciate his elegance as a batsman whilst he was playing; I did, however, know that he was simply superb and miles above our other batsmen of the time. I have distinct memories of travelling up to our grandparents place in the early 90s - it was about a 45 minute journey, though as a kid felt far longer - and as soon as we'd get there we'd ask what the score was, and it would always be some variation of 'we were in trouble early, but Crowe is rebuilding the innings'. I also remember his final test innings where he was clapped off the ground by India (IIRC); I had no real concept of what he'd achieved as a player but I knew we were losing our best.
His innovative captaincy will be mentioned a lot in the coming days but what has stood out for me in recent years was his genuine care and love for the game. Whether it was writing on Cricinfo or being interviewed by the media he came across as simply wanting the best for the game, and for the players playing it - particularly the NZ batsmen, most obviously Taylor and Guptill of course - to be as good as they could be. He's also someone who I would listen to above pretty much anyone else when talking about batting.
A sad day for cricket.
Brilliant batsman. I was a bit young to truly appreciate his elegance as a batsman whilst he was playing; I did, however, know that he was simply superb and miles above our other batsmen of the time. I have distinct memories of travelling up to our grandparents place in the early 90s - it was about a 45 minute journey, though as a kid felt far longer - and as soon as we'd get there we'd ask what the score was, and it would always be some variation of 'we were in trouble early, but Crowe is rebuilding the innings'. I also remember his final test innings where he was clapped off the ground by India (IIRC); I had no real concept of what he'd achieved as a player but I knew we were losing our best.
His innovative captaincy will be mentioned a lot in the coming days but what has stood out for me in recent years was his genuine care and love for the game. Whether it was writing on Cricinfo or being interviewed by the media he came across as simply wanting the best for the game, and for the players playing it - particularly the NZ batsmen, most obviously Taylor and Guptill of course - to be as good as they could be. He's also someone who I would listen to above pretty much anyone else when talking about batting.
A sad day for cricket.
_Ed_
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Yes, please. Four stumps, the whole shebang.
The Battlers Prince
International Vice-Captain
RIP to another legend gone. Classy bat to watch, just had time to play his shots. Sad news.
Jord
U19 Vice-Captain
Yessss... who do we petition to make this happen
vcs
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i think most fans of our generation have very fond memories of that WC, it all started with NZ beating Australia with a Crowe century. Also loved his articles on cricinfo, and he clearly played a huge role in mentoring and shaping the careers of some of NZ's modern greats.
RIP. One of my earliest cricketing memories is seeing New Zealand under Crowe being amazing in the WC 92 with Greatbatch hitting terrific shots, Dipak Patel opening the bowling. For a young fan just starting following the game, it showed me how cricket was amazingly exciting and I was hooked. I remember the Max cricket which Crowe introduced as well. Today we see T20 cricket dominate every where but we shouldn't forget that innovation at all. A true pioneer.
Sad, sad news. 53 is no age to go.
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honestbharani
Whatever it takes!!!
Such a bummer of a news to wake up to. Great man and the way he conducted himself since the cancer returned has been phenomenal and truly inspirational. Wonderful cricketer but more importantly seems to have been a very good person throughout his life. What a loss. I somehow feel like this is more of a personal loss, maybe because I saw him during that Aus NZ group game in the WC on TV and was part of all that. RIP
Guess some of my earliest cricketing memories are the 1992 WC like I guess quite a few here. So as such the first truly great batsman we all saw and now he is no more at just 53. This is tragic to say the least.
RIPGuess some of my earliest cricketing memories are the 1992 WC like I guess quite a few here. So as such the first truly great batsman we all saw and now he is no more at just 53. This is tragic to say the least.
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Black_Warrior
Cricketer Of The Year
doesitmatter
U19 Cricketer
s..tty news man..Not just a loss to NZ cricket but the world cricket at large ..RIP Martin Crowe...
indiaholic
International Captain
I never know what to say at times like these. Loved watching him bat, loved watching him talk, loved reading the articles he wrote. Most of all I loved that he was such a great fan of cricket. Will be missed.
OverratedSanity
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Great batsman. One of the best of the sub 50 average club. Listening to him speak and reading his articles, he seemed a man who wore his heart very much on his sleeve.
RIP
RIP
Saint Kopite
First Class Debutant
RIP Martin!
Saint Kopite
First Class Debutant
Martin The Invincible
Gideon Haigh
The first thing that struck me on meeting Martin Crowe, even in the shadow of illness, was his physical presence. Strong frame. Broad shoulders. Deep chest. Direct gaze. This was a little unexpected. I identified him with a cricket of elegant classicism, of economy of movement, of touch and precision rather than brawn. But then I also remembered how he pervaded a crease rather than simply occupying it, and how he obtained such power from such a minuscule backlift, barely a flex of the wrists. Though illness had taken its toll, the deep latent strength was unmistakable.
The second thing that struck me was how completely alive he was, how dedicated to getting the most and best out of every encounter, his utter humility and insatiable curiosity. Some cricketers never cease being cricketers. Even after retirement they are still at the crease; they can't stop taking guard. Martin was past cricket in the two brief years we were friends, and perhaps the least guarded man I have ever known, utterly frank and giving of himself, healthily in touch with his feelings, and so present in all his dealings that, despite knowing how completely reconciled he was to his mortality, I find myself strangely unprepared to write about him in the past tense.
It was not always thus with Martin, as he was the first to admit. It's 20 years since he published his first autobiography, Out on a Limb. In hindsight, he thought it a failure - too self-protecting, too self-justifying. That same year, a controversial, unvarnished "unauthorised biography" by Joseph Romanos was published, Tortured Genius. "He did me better than I did me," Martin said. When I ventured that I thought I might have liked him back in the day, Martin looked momentarily very serious. "No, you wouldn't have," he said. "No, you wouldn't have."
Maybe Martin had more admirers outside his homeland than in it, or at least enjoyed more unleavened admiration. Peter Roebuck described him as "always at war with his own publicity" in New Zealand. As the country's premier batsman, captain designate, then captain, he was known for wanting, and for getting, things his own way. His occasional ruthlessness with others reflected a ruthlessness with himself.
He was first chosen against Australia, aged 19. He was not ready. It hurt him. Sometimes it's said that young players are toughened up by being blooded early, experiencing failure and fighting back. Martin would not have agreed. Strong emotions and deep anxieties lay beneath the surface confidence. He was quick to judge others as "not good enough", not because he did not know what it was to struggle but because he did. The world he later hugged to his breast he kept then at 22 yards' length, and it worked: after 13 Tests, he averaged only 21; across the decade in which he was New Zealand's first and best hope, he averaged in the mid-50s.
Young fans trying to get a feel for Martin the batsman will probably have recourse to the annals of YouTube, on which he is well represented in various highlights packages. In doing so, they will miss what I thought was his most memorable quality. Highlights transact in fours and sixes; what they won't show you is the compact, impassable certainty of the Crowe defence. Rare were the circumstances that allowed Martin to bat with true abandon. Often he was husbanding an innings or leading a regrouping. He would be behind the ball and in a position to defend so early that it was almost as emphatic a statement as striking a boundary. His theory - and he had many theories, logically reasoned - was that getting in line opened up the leg side, where there were always fewer fielders.
Whatever the case, the period of his long peak coincided with an unprecedented depth in fast bowling round the world: Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner, Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose, Kapil Dev and Allan Donald, to name but a few. The capacity to outlast counted for more than the yen to outhit. He played spin from the crease, with defensive hands as soft as down. Roebuck once wrote that had Viv Richards chosen simply to block, nobody would ever have got him out; you had a similar feeling when Martin got in his groove, shoulders perfectly aligned, bat coming through like a plumb bob, so absolute was his control.
Thirty years ago at the Gabba, Richard Hadlee led New Zealand to victory by bundling Australia out twice in short order on a sporting pitch. On the same surface, Martin batted eight hours against an attack led by Geoff Lawson and Craig McDermott for 188. I can see him now - tight, upright, playing pedantically in the V, the sleeves buttoned to the wrists, the distinctive white headband beneath the distinctive white helmet, as understated and soaringly magnificent as a Doric column. Martin's one little touch of flamboyance was his penchant for the hook, which he played fearlessly, despite eschewing a face guard on his helmet. In Christchurch a few months after Brisbane, he retired, bloodied and groggy, after a blow to the jaw from Bruce Reid: he returned in a fine fury, his 137 laced with 21 boundaries.
Other injuries were harder to surmount. The back. The knees. Touring Sri Lanka in 1984 and distracted by the pain from a broken thumb, he ate two mussels off a plate, and contracted salmonella that lasted on and off for four years. Three years later, he was struck down with glandular fever. When the lymphoma that finally overwhelmed him was diagnosed in October 2012, he determined to live until he died. Resolving to tell his story again, he unconventionally asked his unauthorised biographer Romanos to help.
The result was Raw, an unflinchingly honest self-appraisal, which is what caused me to contact him in the first place, not something I would normally do, but which the book seemed to demand. Martin proved to be an astonishingly assiduous correspondent, hugely motivated to become a better writer, always wanting to know what you thought of his work, endlessly encouraging of your own. Physically confined by ill-health, he had time for philosophical discussion and personal reflection. With Martin there was no such thing as a trivial contact. Perhaps because it was his own aim, he made you want to be your best self.
Martin's love of cricket was fathomless: so passionate he needed to break from it from time to time; so profound he always found his way back to the fold. His great theme in the last while was anger and ill-feeling on the cricket field. The world was so full of it; why could cricket not provide some sort of refuge, a better example? In the last messages we exchanged, he was playful, funny, happily watching the game, even though his physical presence was entering the past tense. That invincible spirit endures.
Gideon Haigh
The first thing that struck me on meeting Martin Crowe, even in the shadow of illness, was his physical presence. Strong frame. Broad shoulders. Deep chest. Direct gaze. This was a little unexpected. I identified him with a cricket of elegant classicism, of economy of movement, of touch and precision rather than brawn. But then I also remembered how he pervaded a crease rather than simply occupying it, and how he obtained such power from such a minuscule backlift, barely a flex of the wrists. Though illness had taken its toll, the deep latent strength was unmistakable.
The second thing that struck me was how completely alive he was, how dedicated to getting the most and best out of every encounter, his utter humility and insatiable curiosity. Some cricketers never cease being cricketers. Even after retirement they are still at the crease; they can't stop taking guard. Martin was past cricket in the two brief years we were friends, and perhaps the least guarded man I have ever known, utterly frank and giving of himself, healthily in touch with his feelings, and so present in all his dealings that, despite knowing how completely reconciled he was to his mortality, I find myself strangely unprepared to write about him in the past tense.
It was not always thus with Martin, as he was the first to admit. It's 20 years since he published his first autobiography, Out on a Limb. In hindsight, he thought it a failure - too self-protecting, too self-justifying. That same year, a controversial, unvarnished "unauthorised biography" by Joseph Romanos was published, Tortured Genius. "He did me better than I did me," Martin said. When I ventured that I thought I might have liked him back in the day, Martin looked momentarily very serious. "No, you wouldn't have," he said. "No, you wouldn't have."
Maybe Martin had more admirers outside his homeland than in it, or at least enjoyed more unleavened admiration. Peter Roebuck described him as "always at war with his own publicity" in New Zealand. As the country's premier batsman, captain designate, then captain, he was known for wanting, and for getting, things his own way. His occasional ruthlessness with others reflected a ruthlessness with himself.
He was first chosen against Australia, aged 19. He was not ready. It hurt him. Sometimes it's said that young players are toughened up by being blooded early, experiencing failure and fighting back. Martin would not have agreed. Strong emotions and deep anxieties lay beneath the surface confidence. He was quick to judge others as "not good enough", not because he did not know what it was to struggle but because he did. The world he later hugged to his breast he kept then at 22 yards' length, and it worked: after 13 Tests, he averaged only 21; across the decade in which he was New Zealand's first and best hope, he averaged in the mid-50s.
Young fans trying to get a feel for Martin the batsman will probably have recourse to the annals of YouTube, on which he is well represented in various highlights packages. In doing so, they will miss what I thought was his most memorable quality. Highlights transact in fours and sixes; what they won't show you is the compact, impassable certainty of the Crowe defence. Rare were the circumstances that allowed Martin to bat with true abandon. Often he was husbanding an innings or leading a regrouping. He would be behind the ball and in a position to defend so early that it was almost as emphatic a statement as striking a boundary. His theory - and he had many theories, logically reasoned - was that getting in line opened up the leg side, where there were always fewer fielders.
Whatever the case, the period of his long peak coincided with an unprecedented depth in fast bowling round the world: Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner, Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose, Kapil Dev and Allan Donald, to name but a few. The capacity to outlast counted for more than the yen to outhit. He played spin from the crease, with defensive hands as soft as down. Roebuck once wrote that had Viv Richards chosen simply to block, nobody would ever have got him out; you had a similar feeling when Martin got in his groove, shoulders perfectly aligned, bat coming through like a plumb bob, so absolute was his control.
Thirty years ago at the Gabba, Richard Hadlee led New Zealand to victory by bundling Australia out twice in short order on a sporting pitch. On the same surface, Martin batted eight hours against an attack led by Geoff Lawson and Craig McDermott for 188. I can see him now - tight, upright, playing pedantically in the V, the sleeves buttoned to the wrists, the distinctive white headband beneath the distinctive white helmet, as understated and soaringly magnificent as a Doric column. Martin's one little touch of flamboyance was his penchant for the hook, which he played fearlessly, despite eschewing a face guard on his helmet. In Christchurch a few months after Brisbane, he retired, bloodied and groggy, after a blow to the jaw from Bruce Reid: he returned in a fine fury, his 137 laced with 21 boundaries.
Other injuries were harder to surmount. The back. The knees. Touring Sri Lanka in 1984 and distracted by the pain from a broken thumb, he ate two mussels off a plate, and contracted salmonella that lasted on and off for four years. Three years later, he was struck down with glandular fever. When the lymphoma that finally overwhelmed him was diagnosed in October 2012, he determined to live until he died. Resolving to tell his story again, he unconventionally asked his unauthorised biographer Romanos to help.
The result was Raw, an unflinchingly honest self-appraisal, which is what caused me to contact him in the first place, not something I would normally do, but which the book seemed to demand. Martin proved to be an astonishingly assiduous correspondent, hugely motivated to become a better writer, always wanting to know what you thought of his work, endlessly encouraging of your own. Physically confined by ill-health, he had time for philosophical discussion and personal reflection. With Martin there was no such thing as a trivial contact. Perhaps because it was his own aim, he made you want to be your best self.
Martin's love of cricket was fathomless: so passionate he needed to break from it from time to time; so profound he always found his way back to the fold. His great theme in the last while was anger and ill-feeling on the cricket field. The world was so full of it; why could cricket not provide some sort of refuge, a better example? In the last messages we exchanged, he was playful, funny, happily watching the game, even though his physical presence was entering the past tense. That invincible spirit endures.
Zinzan
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We all knew this day wasn't far off based on what we've learned of his illness and more recently the fact that he did away with any cancer treatment. In spite of this, it stills hits very hard.
My first true sporting hero. I couldn't have been more infatuated with his career when I was a young 6-7 year old. I distinctly remember thinking how I preferred failing myself with the bat in junior Saturday morning cricket if it meant that somehow superstitiously Crowe would score runs.
I still think he was the most elegant and classical of all batsmen I've seen, & yes including the likes of Gower, Mark Waugh and Greg Chappell, but that might just be my bias.
I've often posted this following statistic to put in context just how good a batsmen he was for anyone who thinks looking his very good, but not amazing test average of 45 is indicative of this. It isn't.
The true reflection of his greatness is that in the 10 year period between 1 Jan 1985 & 31 Dec 1994, he was effectively the worlds best batsman.
Batting records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo
On top of this is the way in which he scored those runs... How classic is this assortment of strokes against Akram
RIP man.
My first true sporting hero. I couldn't have been more infatuated with his career when I was a young 6-7 year old. I distinctly remember thinking how I preferred failing myself with the bat in junior Saturday morning cricket if it meant that somehow superstitiously Crowe would score runs.
I still think he was the most elegant and classical of all batsmen I've seen, & yes including the likes of Gower, Mark Waugh and Greg Chappell, but that might just be my bias.
I've often posted this following statistic to put in context just how good a batsmen he was for anyone who thinks looking his very good, but not amazing test average of 45 is indicative of this. It isn't.
The true reflection of his greatness is that in the 10 year period between 1 Jan 1985 & 31 Dec 1994, he was effectively the worlds best batsman.
Batting records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo
On top of this is the way in which he scored those runs... How classic is this assortment of strokes against Akram
RIP man.
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Burgey
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Very sad to hear this. By all reports he was a fine man, and he was a cricketer of the highest class. There was a wonderful line of elegant batsmen I had the pleasure of watching which began with Greg Chappell and ran through David Gower, Crowe and Mark Waugh. There were batsmen who scored as many or more runs, but to me these were the blokes who made it look most elegant and easy.
I first saw him during the 1985-86 series here when he and Hadlee dominated. He was the batsman who most reminded me of Greg Chappell - tall, with a great presence at the crease and sooooo much time.
Very sad to hear of his passing. RIP
I first saw him during the 1985-86 series here when he and Hadlee dominated. He was the batsman who most reminded me of Greg Chappell - tall, with a great presence at the crease and sooooo much time.
Very sad to hear of his passing. RIP
