Martin Crowe and Cricket Max
Monday, September 22, 2008 : Reference, Twenty20
Happy birthday to Martin Crowe (46) today, a man well ahead of his time in thinking about the challenges cricket faced at the turn of the century. He promoted 'Cricket Max' a pre-cursor to Twenty20 that aimed to provide a game that can fit into modern lifestyles squeezed by time pressures.
Cricket Max was introduced in New Zealand as the 'Third Generation' of cricket, 3-5 day cricket and one day cricket being the previous generations. Cricket Max introduced 3 hour cricket with 2 innings per side of 10 overs. It also experimented with the rules by introducing a Max Zone behind the bowler where shots could count double enabling a batsman to hit a maximum of 12. Cricket Max may have gone a bit too far with the use of 4 stumps, designed to help bowlers dismiss batsmen as a batsman could not be dismissed leg before wicket.
In my opinion, Cricket Max failed to catch on at the time because it was too radical. Twenty20, although hated by cricketing traditionalists and sceptically accepted by the players initially, has had a smother introduction because of it's acceptance of the basic rules of the game. However Martin Crowe must be credited with helping to pave the way for Twenty20. It comes as now surprise then that he is part of the management structure of the Bangalore Royal Challengers, one of the eight franchises in the Indian Premier League (IPL) Twenty20 cricket competition.
Martin Crowe is a former captain of New Zealand with a Test average of 45.36 with 18 hundreds. He was also a innovative ODI captain introducing the concept of pinch hitters.
Crash Bang Wallop: Twenty20 - A History of the Brief Game
is available from Amazon.
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