By DON CAMERON
Perhaps more than any other sport, cricket develops and cherishes larger-than-life "characters," and the game will be the poorer for the death yesterday of Dave Crowe after a severe illness.
Even before he gained fame as the first father to sire two test cricket captains, Jeff and Martin, Dave
Crowe already occupied a noticeable place among the zesty and sometimes zany affairs of cricket.
Dave Crowe lavished cricketing care and expertise on his two talented sons, but he reduced his bragging rights to the occasional reference in Walter Hadlee's hearing that three Hadlees in New Zealand cricket teams might not carry as much weight as two Crowes captaining their country.
Dave Crowe's own first-class cricket was limited to one game for Wellington and two for Canterbury in the 50s, although he might point out that his five dismissals involved the New Zealand players Ian Colquhoun, Harry Cave, Don Beard, Wynn Bradburn, Noel Harford and the All Black Don Clarke.
Crowe, a keen squash rackets player, reached the semifinals of the national junior championships in 1951 - and in his droll way would then mention there were only four entries in that section.
After a long club cricket career, Dave Crowe took up umpiring - and muttered darkly that bowlers who had removed him lbw through ridiculous appeals in past club games need not appeal to him for any decisions in their favour.
Dave Crowe may have qualified as the ultimate cricketing father.
But there will be just as many folk who will remember the distinctive touches in his character - the raconteur, a "stirrer" of sometimes pungent wit, the champion of chardonnay, smoker of an evil-smelling pipe, and ardent lover of cricket and all its weird and wonderful ways.
