by Rex Clementine

Anyone who debuts as a teenager has got to be a special talent and to do it against the Aussies makes it even more special. Martin Crowe was 19 when he debuted against Greg Chappell’s side of which the attack was spearheaded by  Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson.

Crowe was a natural. He had so much time to play his shots. Technically sound and so pleasant on the eyes.

Crowe was destined for greatness from a young age. He was 21 when Somerset picked him as the county’s overseas signing. Guess whom he replaced? A certain Viv Richards.

What made Martin Crowe a cut above the rest was not just his technique or stroke-play, he was a keen student of the game and a fierce competitor. Sri Lanka’s maiden Test win overseas should have come in 1991 in Wellington but Crowe’s competitive nature put an end to it. In the same game, he broke Glenn Turner’s record for the highest individual score (259) by a Kiwi in Tests. But cruelly was dismissed one run short of a triple hundred. That one run would have meant that he became the first New Zealander to score a triple hundred in Tests. The worst thing was that he was dismissed by the harmless medium pace of Arjuna Ranatunga.

Tactically, he was brilliant. New Zealand were cruising in the 1992  World Cup as Crowe used Mark Greatbatch as an opener during field restrictions and handed the new ball to spinner Dipak Patel surprising opponents.

By the time Crowe retired he was New Zealand’s highest run getter in both forms of the game. He could have done more but knee injuries restricted him. He quit at 33.

More than his batting exploits or captaincy skills, Sri Lankans will remember him for one thing, for saving the county from cricketing isolation.

There was no international cricket played in Sri Lanka from 1987 to 1991 due to the war. In 1991, Ian Pieris was President of Board of Control for Cricket and S. Skandakumar was the Secretary. They attended the ICC meeting and appealed to the rest of the cricketing word to tour Sri Lanka. Australia had given an undertaking to come in September 1992 followed by New Zealand later that year. Over the next 12 months, India, West Indies, England, Pakistan and South Africa were scheduled to come.

The Australian series was a grand success but when the Kiwis landed there was trouble. Navy Commander Clancy Fernando was killed in front of  Taj Samudra hotel where the teams were putting up. Troubled by the suicide attack, just outside their team hotel, the New Zealand team wanted to go home.

Not only the tour but cricket’s future in Sri Lanka was in jeopardy.

It was captain Martin Crowe who decided to stay on and convinced his team to do so. Yet, all his team didn’t agree. Some players wanted to go back home.  Crowe ensured replacements were flown in from New Zealand and the tour went on uninterrupted.

Sri Lanka owe it to Crowe for ensuring the tour went on. Had it been interrupted, the country would have faced another long isolation without cricket.

In 2016, Martin Crowe lost his battle with cancer and died at the age of 53 sending the cricketing world into mourning. He was certainly someone ahead of his time and the World Test Championship that’s currently in play was first mooted by him. Crowe certainly was a friend of Sri Lanka. Impressed by cheerleader Percy Abeysekara’s passion for the game, Crowe once gave away his Man of the Match award to the cheerleader. Several years later upon hearing that Crowe was unwell uncle Percy organized a bodi pooja. He called up journalists asking them to put a reminder in the papers so that fans could turn up for the event. He promoted the event with these words, ‘I crow, you crow, we all crow, for Martin Crowe.’