Martin Crowe is still our best batsman

The word ‘great’ is thrown around in sport as easily as ticker tape at a victory parade. In New Zealand cricket there’s a decent number considered world class over the years but only one great: Sir Richard Hadlee. Ability, matchwinning performances, statistics and, most importantly, impact and status in the international game all ensure the cricketing knight’s standing among the world’s best.

If we’re talking New Zealand batsmen, then the late Martin Crowe remains top of the tree. Not great, with a test average of 45, but the best we’ve produced. Kane Williamson sits in the same category now: extremely good but not yet worthy of the other ‘g’ word. He’s only 26, with just 57 tests behind him, and is headed in that direction.

Crowe is still the best New Zealand batsman I’ve seen. The craftsman who made one of sport’s toughest pursuits an art form; his bat looking like a mini autograph variety in his hands, such was his control and natural ability.

He didn’t pass 10 in his first five test innings, having been thrown in against the fearsome Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson. Then, three years later, he mastered the even scarier West Indies pace attack to score 188 in Guyana. He repeated that score in New Zealand’s most famous test victory in Brisbane, and the following year was bloodied by a Bruce Reid bouncer to the face then returned to blaze another test hundred against Australia at Christchurch.

You could rattle off any number of Crowe’s memorable innings; linger on one of his straight drives, cover drives or pull shots on Youtube for a period that might alarm or concern one’s workmates who just don’t understand.

For a natural athlete, Crowe was injury-prone and ended his test career in 1995 virtually on one leg, his troublesome knee crying enough. If he’d batted on the roads served up in New Zealand and Australia these days, and if his body had held up, Crowe would be in 50-plus average territory which remains the minimum to be considered a batting great.

Williamson’s is currently 50.57, and his 15 test centuries are just two short of Crowe’s New Zealand record. His fourth innings average of 66.9 is second only to Don Bradman in test cricket, of those with 15 or more innings. They’re outstanding numbers to match his ability, and 30-plus test tons are within his grasp if he stays fit and avoids the Crowe injury curse.

But this is a subjective argument, not one based solely on statistics. On pure ability, and watch-ability, Crowe still leads the way for those who’ve worn the black helmet. Some cricket historians have Martin Donnelly and Bert Sutcliffe high up the batting order, and Glenn Turner deserves to be in the conversation, too. Williamson may well have moved past them all to No 2 already, with at least five years left in his international career.

By that time it may be difficult to escape the ‘g’ word with Kane Stuart Williamson, of Tauranga.

For now, though, Martin David Crowe remains No 1, and after watching highlights packages of his greatest innings it’s difficult to see how he can ever be dislodged from that perch.

Martin Crowe is still the best New Zealand batsman I’ve seen. The craftsman who made one of sport’s toughest pursuits an art form. Mark Geenty