Crowe’s prescient Warner warning
Aussie’s boorish behaviour rang alarm bells for the Kiwi great three years ago
It’s not hard to find cricket people who believe the late Martin Crowe was ahead of his time in his thinking on the game.
Crowe, New Zealand’s finest batsman, who died in 2016 aged 53, might look down on cricket’s most recent appalling behaviour by the Australian team and nod knowingly to himself.
After all, in 2015, he penned an article for ESPNcricinfo.com on the increasingly unpleasant behaviour of players, most notably David Warner.
The Australian opener has been rubbed out of the game for a year over the ball tampering incident during the test at Cape Town last month, but before then he had an ugly confrontation with a South African player on a staircase, the latest in a string of offences against the game.
Crowe wrote the column about the lack of discipline in cricket. Warner was front and centre of his thoughts.
“There is a growing concern that Warner’s thuggish behaviour has gone too far,” Crowe wrote.
“Soon, one day, it will lead to an incident that will sully the game for good.”
Crowe pointed out former Australian captain Ian Chappell had said a player will get punched on a field.
“Warner may just be the one who gets pinned by someone in retaliation, and if it is him who gets hammered, it will be overdue, if wrong.”
Crowe was in favour of umpires being armed with red and yellow cards to dish out to unruly players, and proposed six-month bans for players.
“Warner can play, but he is the most juvenile cricketer I have seen on a field. I don’t care how good he is; if he continues to show all those watching that he doesn’t care, he must be removed, either by Cricket Australia or definitely by the world governing body.
“The more he gets away with it, the more others will follow his pitiful actions.”
Other players’ poor behaviour had caught Crowe’s attention, but the combative Australian opener “is the worst culprit”, he wrote.
“If chuckers and match fixers are shown the door, then so too must verbal abusers be.”
Crowe’s concern related to the next generation of young players, who watch their heroes
and imitate their behaviour.
“In their young, impressionable minds, they think they are copying a hero. On the contrary, they are idolising a player who seems determined to bring down the gentleman’s game.”
Crowe called for a six-month ban if a player was issued two yellow cards within a certain period. That’s not happening, but Warner has been given time to cool his heels and consider his future.
“It’s the only way to kill a hornet’s nest and get this game back in a groove of respect,” Crowe wrote.
In his 77-test career, Crowe, among the game’s most elegant and imposing batsmen in his prime, scored 5444 runs at 45.36. His New Zealand record 17 test centuries was overtaken by current national captain Kane Williamson in New Zealand’s first pink ball test at Eden Park against England last month.