Cricket: Healthy Crowe takes to flight

Somerset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .364-8 dec

NZ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .131-1

WHEN the opposition's third- string wicketkeeper plunders a century with all the ease of an Everest conqueror ascending a flight of stairs, pessimism is understandable. However, the sight of Martin Crowe continuing to dust the cobwebs off his elegantly assured bat on his

return here yesterday is bound to do wonders for the collective mental health of the New Zealand tourists.

Rob Turner, the willowy Cambridge graduate chosen ahead of Neil Burns and Piran Holloway, was so at home against a Kiwi attack shorn through injury of Danny Morrison and Chris Pringle that he sprinted to his second fifty off 47 balls, some persuasive legside strokes gleaning the second hundred of a career barely out of nappies. In stark contrast to the laborious efforts of his captain, Andy Hayhurst, whose 89 spanned five and a half hours, it was an innings of joy.

If anything, though, the locals derived even more pleasure from their old boy. Unquestionably his country's one batsman of world-class stature, Crowe, whose knee problems have coincided with a nadir in New Zealand fortunes, is hardly unaccustomed to bearing the millstone of expectation. When he first joined Somerset 10 years ago, the act he had to follow was a one-man show named Viv Richards.

Undeterred, Crowe rustled up six centuries and found further favour by instigating weekly meetings for uncapped players in order to infuse them with his own unbridled desire to succeed.

That occasionally ruthless sense of motivation was never in greater evidence than when he returned here in 1987 following the sacking of Richards and Joel Garner that prompted Ian Botham to stomp out in sympathy. Despite a bout of salmonella poisoning that rendered him prey to all sorts of viruses for many years thereafter, Crowe registered another half a dozen County Championship hundreds.

An ovation greeted his arrival at the crease yesterday, far more affectionate than polite. Initially content to ward off the scattergun assault of Andre van Troost, he waited 13 overs before acquiring his first boundary, a dismissive pull off Andy Caddick. Mushtaq Ahmed was promptly clattered through the covers then driven straight.

Rain soon arrested the momentum but, in the 11 overs possible once the clouds had dispersed, he reached a serene 50 off 97 balls. More significantly, he was filching the strike with all the zest of a man once more coming to terms with his muse.