coach
CRICKET:Paul Weaver
WHEN viewed from a distance, with his chronically arthritic right knee and a hairline that is receding faster than the tide at Timaru beach, it is possible that he has become shrouded in middle age, that quite suddenly he has been mugged by Methuselah. It is only when one gets much closer, and sees those still youthful, handsome features that one remembers Martin Crowe is still only 34.
Crowe was at Lancaster Park last week, along with Sir Richard Hadlee, both on day- release from the Pantheon. The greatest batsman and the greatest bowler in New Zealand’s history were overseeing preparations for the third Test against England, which New Zealand lost thus losing the series 2-0.
Crowe was one of the great batsmen of the modern era, with 5 394 runs from 74 Tests, 17 hundreds and an average of 46,10. Massive natural talent was forged with a painstaking technique to make his batting sometimes appear perfect.
In Wellington, where they lost by an innings and 68 runs, New Zealand’s batsmen batted less like rabbits than victims of myxomatosis. So in the very English city of Christchurc (a place known for its weeping willows, please note) it seemed reasonable to ask whether he was frustrated not to be playing at an age when some batsmen are still approaching their peak.
Instead, he seemed rather relieved it was all over. There are some sportsmen for whom the search for perfection becomes a tortured narcissism; Carl Lewis is one, John McEnroe another. It is a category that also houses Crowe, essentially an unselfish team player who allowed himself to become self-exiled from the dressing room by his search for batting sublimity.
“There was a time, about 1987 and 1988, when my intensity and intolerance of other players stopped me enjoying the game. I was playing for Somerset and New Zealand, teams not endowed with a great deal of batting talent. At Somerset there was the additional pressure of coming to the club after they had got rid of Viv Richards and Joel Garner.
“I drew on all my mental and physical resources to ensure I didn’t fail [he scored six centuries in the sonorous Somerset summer of 1987].
“When you are under that sort of pressure something cracks. My cracks started to appear with my inability to relax with the rest of the team.” It had all felt so different in Crowe’s previous season at Taunton, in 1984. Then he was hero- worshipped by the young players n the staff, even though he was only 21. He was the founder and guru of the Nags Club, where the country’s youngsters would meet excitedly to discuss the game, ambition and idealism.
Crowe was brought up in an affluent suburb of Auckland, where he now lives, running his sports consultancy business, Winning Ways, between stints on Sky TV. Even as a boy his confidence earned him the nickname Hogan, after the TV comedy show Hogan’s Heroes. He was clearly more gifted than his elder brother Jeff and from an early age he would play Test cricket and wanted to be compared with the likes of Hammond and Richards.
By nature an introvert but in lifestyle an extrovert, he did not sit easily among such great New Zealand sporting heroes as John Walker, Colin Meads and Hadlee. At one time his unpopularity with the press reached such a level that there was a claim of homosexuality and another that he was suffering from Aids.
The tough times are still here. Last year his marriage collapsed as irrevocably as his right knee. “I took a bit of a hammering in 1996. It was the year my marriage failed and also when I finally decided to pack it in as a player. I gave it my best shot. But I’m busy. I set up and run Cricket Max.” This is a hectic, half- day game consisting of two innings a side, each lasting just 10 overs.
‘Then I have my TV work, my consultancy and my work with the current New Zealand players which I feel is very important. Before the Wellington Test the batsmen looked pretty good with their technique in the nets. They seemed to know how to ‘leave’ the ball. But they just seemed to panic in those two hours on the first day. They chased everything that was wide.
“Possibly they felt they would rather be fielding than batting in that tricky period, but their anxiety levels really kicked in. Experience is a big factor. These days we don’t have those players showing the new guys how to hang in there. We have aproblem here. We’re doing well at youth and development level but cricket in this country has become diluted.
“There’s a lot of touch rugby being played in the summer and the rugby season itself is longer. Soccer is also being played in the summer.
“This means that club cricket and the core of the game is not as strong as it was in the 1980s. Also, in the Eighties, we had five members of the New Zealand team playing in England’s county championship, Richard and myself, John Wright, Geoff Howarth and Glenn Turner. Now there is only Chris Cairns at Notts.
“The championship helps develop a player’s professionalism. The senior players are not there at the moment. We have a new brand of player who has to get his advice from his coach, or from advisors like Richard and myself. Stephen Fleming is only 23 and has played just a handful of Tests, with a single hundred, but he is now viewed as our senior batsman.”
It is worth remembering that countries such as New Zealand and Pakistan always struggled to beat England until the likes of Parker, Turner, Hadlee and Crowe, Imran, Zaheer and Sadiq started to play regular county cricket. Last week Crowe and Hadlee were not on the field but shuffling about, hands in pockets. The world felt a duller place.