The Vault - Martin Crowe: Cricket team aim to please public

This article was published in the Herald on September 4, 1990, shortly after Martin Crowe assumed the captaincy of the New Zealand cricket team

The New Zealand cricket team would aim to try to please the New Zealand public for a change, Martin Crowe, the new captain, said yesterday.

Crowe called the conference to introduce what he called a new time, a new era of New Zealand cricket.

Late in the conference Crowe said he intended the New Zealand team to play attractive cricket for the New Zealand public.

"This is something that has not happened in the last couple of years. Perhaps a few of us old blokes were a bit greedy with our own approaches to the game and probably have not moulded into a side attractive to the public.

"That is something we want to do in the future."

Crowe said that while New Zealand had lost some leading player, taking a team first-up to Pakistan was a huge challenge.

"In fact it is a great situation, a chance to get the side together and mould it. We will have small objectives. We will not be setting our goals too high, but something we can reach for."

Crowe said that a test win in Pakistan would be fantastic. A win in one of the one-day internationals "would put us on the board, that would be a start."

However, Crowe pointed out that the last New Zealand side to Pakistan in 1984 had been near enough to full-strength - "and they got smashed."

The comparative inexperience of the bowling would be one difficulty in Pakistan.

"We now have Danny Morrison as our senior bowler in terms of test wickets. The second bowler to Danny is me."

Crowe hoped that Dipak Patel would be able to come out of John Bracewell's shadow and establish himself as a test all-rounder as a batsman, bowler and fielder.

Ian Smith, the tour vice-captain, said that he had high hopes for the tour.

"I am reminded of the time when in 1986 Australia beat the All Blacks at Eden Park and as 40,000 people left the ground you could have heard a pin drop.

"Yet the All Blacks formed a new team, got a new attitude, and 12 months later they had won the World Cup," said Smith.

"That is the attitude we have got to have."