Cricket: 'Deep thinker' saluted

Martin Crowe with Mark Greatbatch in the 1992 World Cup Commemorative Game at Cornwall CC, Auckland, last year.

The association Scott Briasco had with Martin Crowe goes all the way to their teenage years.

"When I was at the under-20 [national] tournament at Te Whiti Park, Hutt Valley, he was only 14 years old," former Central Districts Stags teammate Briasco said of Crowe who lost his battle with cancer at the age of 53 in Auckland yesterday.

"When we were going to the under-23s in Gisborne he couldn't go to it because he was sitting his school certificate exams," the now Central Districts amateur cricket and operations manager said last night of the former New Zealand international.

Briasco, who shared the job of captaining the Stags with Crowe in the 1980s, said Crowe's talent was blatantly obvious "from the word go and he was something special".

Inarguably the best batsman New Zealand produced, Crowe developed a wristy batting style that was often juxtaposed with talented counterparts from the subcontinent.

When he arrived from Auckland in the mid-1980s he brought a "different approach to the country areas".

"He certainly wanted to make an impression to promote himself for international cricket but, at the same time, he also wanted CD to achieve and remain the best."

Briasco said he did things in an "interesting way" and strove for what some would call "perfection" but he preferred to call it "top performance".

"Because he was so good he wanted us to improve to his own level but, as fantastic as he was, we weren't going to join him.

"If we could just get half way there it would have been better but that was never going to happen as Martin Crowe had such high standards."

He rated Crowe's CD performance against the touring Australians here as "outstanding".
In the summer of 1986-87, he amassed a record 4000 runs in a calendar year for the Stags, Somerset and New Zealand.

"He was just sublime," Briasco said after he made a record 1348 runs for CD that Shell Cup (now first-class Plunket Shield) season. Teammate and fellow international Mark Greatbatch had eclipsed the old record of 674 by a couple of runs before Crowe ran riot.

That season he was named CD captain and with that responsibility Crowe upped his stakes before heading later to Wellington in 1990-91.

"He batted, bowled and fielded. If anything had to happen that season in a game, he did it.

"On his day he was a wonderful person but at the same time he didn't allow people to get close to him and it's something he said in his book," Briasco said, emphasising those who got close to Crowe discovered he was a "deep thinker and an excellent person".

To achieve in cricket, he said, one had to be single-minded person and Crowe epitomised that.

Briasco recalled a game in Christchurch when a Stu Roberts' bouncer hit Crowe in the neck and he was the non-batter.

"He got up and became absolutely murderous that day, scoring 170 and it's the first time I'd ever seen someone playing in their zone before.

"He didn't talk to me at all. His eyes were glazed over that day. I was privileged to watch him from the other end," he said of Crowe with whom he forged ties with at personal and business levels (Max Cricket) after their careers ended.