Cricket world mourns Martin Crowe’s death
The New Zealand Cricket-Association tweeted that losing Crowe is deeply saddening, while former New Zealand-captain, Stephen Fleming said that Martin was an inspiration to many and one of their 'true' greats. The Basin Reserve cricket ground put the 'RIP Martin Crowe' message on the scoreboard. New Zealand PM John Key; Martin's cousin, Russell Crowe; and many international cricket figures paid tributes to Martin Crowe.
Martin Crowe was a cricketer who played for New Zealand from 1982-1996. After retirement, he became a cricket-coach, a commentator and an author. He was a medium-pace bowler, and one of the world's best batsmen from New Zealand. He captained New Zealand from 1990-94. His father Dave Crowe was a first-class cricket player, and cricketer brother Jeff Crowe was New Zealand's captain too.
Martin Crowe had invented a short format of cricket, the idea behind today's Twenty20 cricket format. He had invented, designed the format as he felt there was a need for a short, colorful, exciting format of cricket which had some old cricket traditions apart from new rules. The first Cricket Max game was played on 5 February 1996 at Cornwall Park in Auckland.
The ICC Twenty20 format has some rules which were adopted from Cricket Max format. For example, the discontinued format had rules like the 'free hit' rule after a no-ball was bowled; and when wide-balls were bowled, batting side earns runs.
The news of former New Zealand captain Crowe diagnosed with lymphoma, a type of cancer in October 2012 shocked the cricket world. He had undergone multiple chemotherapy sessions for the stomach tumor that caused the trouble. In June 2013, Crowe's specialist reportedly had announced his recovery from cancer. However, he added that chemotherapy destroyed the tumors and also warned that they could return.
In September 2014, Crowe had undergone some tests for severe backaches. The doctors had declared that it was the relapse of lymphoma. He had tweeted that his friend and tough taskmaster Lymphoma had returned to teach him.
After a long battle of four years, the Twenty20 format pioneer and New Zealand cricket legend succumbed to cancer. He was diagnosed with terminal lymphoma in September 2014 and died on 3 March 2016 at Auckland. His family announced that the funeral would be held on 11 March at Holy Trinity Cathedral, Auckland. Crowe had played 77 tests and 143 ODIs for New Zealand.
