Profile: Martin Crowe

The product of a cricketing family – father Dave played first class cricket and brother Jeff represented New Zealand – Martin Crowe was a dominant, innovative force in New Zealand cricket throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

In a 13-year Test career Crowe scored 17 centuries for his country, five more than next on the list John Wright, at an average in excess of 45, including 299 against Sri Lanka – the highest score by any New Zealander in Test cricket.

Crowe captained his country for 16 Tests, scoring on average nearly ten runs an innings more as skipper. He was an inventive captain, pioneering the use of a pinch hitter and opening the bowling with an off-spinner in the 1992 World Cup so successfully that New Zealand reached the semi-finals.

Crowe pioneered an ultra-short version of the game years before Twenty20 became established: Cricket Max, which he invented in 1996, had two innings of ten overs, four-stump wickets, and ‘Max’ zones which doubled the value of runs scored from balls hit into them. His progressive thinking led to his recruitment by Bangalore Royal Challengers as part of their management team in the Indian Premier League.

In 1981 Crowe came to Lord’s as an MCC Young Cricketer. Twenty-five years later he returned to deliver the Cowdrey Lecture where he proposed several ideas aimed at safeguarding the Spirit of Cricket and enhancing the role of umpires. He recommended that the International Cricket Council own the Hawk-Eye technology to ensure it could be used by all countries to ascertain where the ball had pitched or hit the batsmen in lbw appeals, but not where the ball may go. He called for on-field umpires, rather than slow-motion replays, to determine instances of throwing, and suggested the Elite Panel of umpires be expanded.

Crowe was the driving force behind the World Cricket Committee’s proposal for a World Test Championship which was presented to the ICC in November 2009.