Brilliance and broken bones – Lockie Ferguson’s career-changing clash with Martin Crowe

In the winter of 2011, 48-year-old Martin Crowe announced a comeback to club cricket and while the return was cut short by injury, he did offer a brief glimpse of the genius that made him New Zealand’s greatest batsman.

That bowler on the receiving end was one who would, in the intervening decade, go on to terrorise some of the world’s best white-ball batsmen with his pace.

1News’ Daniel Fraser tells the story of when the late New Zealand great faced a young Lockie Ferguson in a clash that the now 30-year-old says changed his career, in more ways than one.

Martin Crowe stared down some of cricket’s most terrifying fast bowlers in 77 Tests during the sport’s most brutal era. But 16 years after retirement, in the middle of a short-lived club comeback, Crowe faced a tearaway 29 years his junior who it seemed he was no longer equipped to deal with.

While a suburban ground in Auckland’s east on a fresh spring day 10 years ago bore few similarities with the international cauldrons Crowe had survived, and eventually thrived in. A young Lockie Ferguson, not long out of his teens and eager to make a name for himself, delivered a barrage worthy of international cricket.

During the ferocious spell, the New Zealand great copped several painful blows, in the ribs, and one to the hand.

It quickly had Crowe reassessing his comeback as he asked himself: “What the bloody hell am I doing here?”

It was back in 2011, almost 16 years from when he played his last Test match, when New Zealand’s greatest batsman started thinking of making his comeback.

It was an idea that started, as many do, mulling over a few glasses of red wine.

“He was saying, ‘I think I could actually do well looking at the cricket at the moment, I could put my head down and score a few runs these days, still,’” Crowe’s close friend Steve Wilkes recalls.

“Next thing he says, ‘I think I might go play club cricket again, just for a bit of fun, get fit’.”

While fitness was the primary motivation, the possibility of returning to first class cricket and scoring the 392 runs to take him past 20,000 was an enticing milestone Crowe wanted to conquer.

Once he made his decision to take up his bat again, news of New Zealand’s greatest batsman returning to the picturesque ground at the foot of Auckland’s Maungakiekie/One Tree Hill where he had learned the game spread quickly across the cricketing world. Not least through the playing ranks at Cornwall Cricket Club.

“When he was announced he was coming back to play for Cornwall there was a bit of a buzz around, really, because it’s not every day you get to play with New Zealand’s best ever batsman,” premier batsman Brad Chemaly said.

For some, it was a case of seeing Crowe play to believe the comeback was real.

“I think initially we were all kind of like, ‘is this real? What was he? Mid-forties and is this going to happen? Is this kind of a piss-take? What’s going on?’” Cornwall’s star opener Michael Guptill-Bunce said.

“We didn’t really know if it was true until he turned up for the first net,” then-Cornwall general manager and premier opening batsman Matt ‘Cheese’ Davies said.

Crowe’s class, largely undiminished by 16 years of retirement, was quickly apparent.

“Pre-season you could tell he wasn’t there just to play socially, his goal was to play for Auckland again. You could tell by the way he trained at the start, he was there to play prems and then see if he could play any higher,” Chemaly said.

“He was a class above really and it was just whether his body would allow him to play.”

As winter turned to spring and soon after his 49th birthday, Crowe’s return to Cornwall’s top side was delayed, first by injury.

“I pulled a hip flexor in July, a hamstring in August, a groin in October,” Crowe wrote at the end of the season.

The next blow would come with a rather perplexing section policy.

“I remember coming down to training and having this media circus when we got down for the first Cornwall nets,” Davis recalls.

“He didn’t get selected for prems in his first game because [coach] Rex [Smith] did his thing, you got to do your time.” The call left many flabbergasted.

After a frustrating fortnight in Cornwall’s reserve side, where his teammates faced the pressure of having to umpire while he batted, Crowe was elevated to the top side. Setting the stage for a showdown with Parnell and its 20-year-old tearaway bowler.

“It just happened to be that he was playing the Parnell vs Cornwall game at Parnell, which was Saturday-Sunday,” Lockie Ferguson remembers.

Ten years on, Ferguson, with five years in the Black Caps under his belt, can still remember the build-up to the game against Cornwall.

“It was everywhere. I remember he was on the news and all sorts,” Ferguson said.

“We certainly knew all about it and Cornwall versus Parnell game is always very anticipated amongst club cricketers, so it was almost quite special that it was that game.”

The Ferguson of 2011 was not the fit, strong fast strong bowler who would make his international debut five years later. The 20-year-old was still over a year away from making his first-class debut and by his own admission, not yet living a lifestyle fully committed to cricket.

“I certainly wasn’t in the same shape I am now. I was at university and wasn’t as professional as I am now back in those days,” Ferguson said.

Despite being a long way from the finished article, Ferguson’s reputation for raw pace went back to his days opening the bowling for Auckland Grammar’s 1st XI alongside Jimmy Neesham.

Adding spice to the fixture was Ferguson’s recent swapping of Cornwall Park for Parnell’s Shore Rd, after starting in senior cricket at Cornwall.

After as much hype as an Auckland club match has surely ever got, Cornwall won the toss at Shore Rd on the Saturday, November 19, 2011 and elected to bat on a fresh early season pitch.

Crowe came to the crease in the ninth over after Ferguson, bowling first change, took his first wicket.

It was a fiery welcome to premier cricket that took Crowe by surprise.

“Lockie just absolutely wound up and was firing it down at him, you could see that Lockie wanted to get at him and you could see ‘Hogan’ was like ‘bloody hell, this is pretty quick’. He wasn’t really expecting that,” Davies recalls.

“The first innings I was bowling reasonably quick, and I was pretty excited, there was a big crowd out there out to watch as well as the news and stuff,” Ferguson said.

“From memory, it was a pretty quick wicket, from memory it seamed a little bit and this was 10-odd years ago. I was bowling quick, but I certainly didn’t have a huge idea where it was going.”

Ferguson would hit Crowe several times, in the ribs and once on the hand - doing damage, as the 49-year-old would find out later.

“He did cop a couple in the ribs, but he took it like a champ to be fair; he didn’t show any pain,” Ferguson remembered.

While Ferguson would dish out some pain, it was 18-year-old opening bowler Mike Ravlic, in his first season of premier cricket, who would take the prized wicket, trapping Crowe in front for two.

“I think it just sort of shaped on from leg stick to middle, it must have been good, otherwise the umpire wouldn’t have given it [LBW]. We didn’t really believe it ourselves at that time, to be honest,” Ravlic remembered.

Davies recalls a shocked Crowe in the changing room.

“He actually came off afterwards and was like ‘that’s not club cricket back in my day, I didn’t expect that,’” Davies said.

“From talking to him he said Lockie was quite quick, and it was a case of ‘what the bloody hell am I doing here?’” Wilkes said.

Ferguson, who Crowe branded “a young tearaway” in his 2013 book, Raw, would finish with three wickets as Cornwall collapsed to be all out for 95.

Parnell would pass that comfortably, setting the stage on the Sunday for Cornwall’s second innings and a second battle between the former international star and a future one.

Ferguson, with some parochial and well-hydrated Parnell supporters egging him on, couldn’t resist another shot at the short-pitched attack that had worked the day before.

“You heard about, you know, 10 or so, Parnell guys, having a few beers just rarking up Lockie. I think he hit him [Crowe] on the shoulder or something,” Guptill-Bunce, who was acting as Crowe’s runner after he injured his leg, recalled.

“Then ‘Hogan’ was ducking and swaying, they kept rarking him [Ferguson] up, rarking him up and then he just took it on, and hooked him, with all the ease in the world.”

“I just got out and I’d got my pads off and was sitting down to watch it,” Davies recalled.

“Lockie bowled him this bouncer and he absolutely smashed him way over the other side of Shore Rd [for a one-bounce four], it went for miles.”

“I got off my feet and was like ‘can you believe this?’”

“Then Lockie pitched it up next ball, probably on a length, like it wasn’t really overpitched, and he just played this perfect Hogan straight drive, straight back past him for four, rolled over the other side of the road at Shore Rd.”

Ferguson begrudgingly describing the stroke as “probably one of the more beautiful shots you’d see, drove it straight past the umpire, past mid-on, sort of classical Hogan” that New Zealand cricket fans of yesteryear will have no trouble imagining.

“It was bittersweet in a way because he smoked me for four which tends to fire up most fast bowlers, but it’s pretty cool to have Martin Crowe do it and play against a legend of New Zealand Cricket like that was pretty special.”

Crowe hit a third, equally spectacular, boundary off Ferguson.

“This backfoot punch, most people are defending into that point region and he has just smoked this four, it was unbelievable,” Guptill-Bunce remembers.

“Watching that from the other end with someone bowling absolute gas was pretty cool to see. I remember those three shots being pretty epic,” Chemaly said.

Just as if it seemed Crowe was going to treat the crowd to a masterclass, his innings was over and he was gone for a breezy 20.

“I remember the deflation when he got out,” Davies said.

“It shaped out I think he’s just played at it and he snicked off, I think [Parnell captain Goddard] was at gully, gully or point,” Ravlic said.

“It was just one of those moments. It was pretty crazy.”

It was too good an opportunity for Ravlic’s proud father to pass up.

“I remember after the game, Mike Ravlic’s dad went to introduce himself to Martin and said ‘how you going? I’m Pete, my son got you out twice this game,’” Ferguson said.

“Obviously, the dad was pretty chuffed about that too, but as always, he [Crowe] was very humble and had a bit of a laugh about it as well.”

“It was so awkward, but it was a hilarious moment,” a laughing Ravlic remembered.

As if Crowe getting the better, albeit briefly, of Ferguson at the age of 49 wasn’t impressive enough, he had done so with an injury the future New Zealand fast bowler had inflicted on the first morning.

“A couple [of balls] sort of popped and he gloved one down, almost like punched it,” Guptill-Bunce remembered of the first morning.

“Lockie actually broke Marty’s hand, ending his brain fart [comeback],” Wilkes said.

“I don’t think Martin said much, I remember in the second innings he came back in when we had both walked off the field, he said something was wrong with his hand,” Guptill-Bunce said.

Crowe would only learn the full extent of the injury on the Monday after the game.

“I don’t think he was aware; it was painful and sore, I don’t think he knew [the hand was broken] until the Monday because he didn’t go to the doctor until then,” Wilkes recalled.

“It wasn’t until after the game saying he was a bit sore and [that he] thought maybe against it. Cause that was it, that was his last hurrah in terms of playing cricket,” Ferguson said.

With radar guns reserved primarily for televised international and first-class matches, just how quick Ferguson was bowling in the game remains a point of debate.

He estimates he was bowling in the late 130km/h range, potentially 140km/h. Quick by international standards and express for club cricket.

While the exact speed is unknown, there was no conjecture that taking on Ferguson was a fearful prospect.

“I’d say around that 140 [km/h] mark, which is coming downwind and sort of slightly downhill at Parnell is pretty frightening,” Ravlic said.

Guptill-Bunce, who opened for Cornwall and would go on captain Ferguson for Auckland later in their careers, knew first-hand the challenge of facing the future Black Caps speedster.

“I guess Lockie was in his infancy with just raw pace, this game with Martin Crowe and all the hype around that, that gave him a bit of a show point, just trying to be as fast as he could. On that pitch, it was definitely a lot to handle,” he said.

“He would fall away and come into your body, you were always feeling your ribs, or your inner thigh were in danger, so it was uncomfortable at the best of times to face him.

“The guys [like Ferguson] that come into your body, even if you’ve got a bit of padding, as I did, it still hurts. You get the big yellowy, purple welts on your stomach or thigh. It’s not comfortable once you’ve been hit once or twice. Your feet decide not to move and all those kinds of little things you require when you’re batting.”

“[I’m] lucky I didn’t have to face him much and seeing him knock an Otago batsman out and bowl him all the same delivery pretty much and then having to face him in the nets, it wasn’t fun.”

Crowe’s efforts, at 49, 16 years on from last playing for New Zealand, and with a broken hand, left a lasting impression on those who were there.

“I remember sitting there thinking people don’t do this to Lockie, he was just starting to come to prominence, he was just starting to make it on the first-class scene and people were starting to take notice that he could bowl super-fast and this 49-year-old dude in his first game of premier cricket back in years is smoking him,” Davies said.

“I think you could watch a lot of international batsmen come back to premier cricket playing Lockie and wouldn’t handle him like that, wouldn’t play those kinds of shots. He’s pretty quick so that was pretty incredible really.”

The on-field clash was just a small chapter in the link between Ferguson and Crowe.

“We’re actually tied together a little bit, my mum worked with him at Sky Sport for a while, so they were pretty matey when I was only a young lad, sort of when Marty was just out of retirement,” Ferguson said.

Wilkes recalled “Lockie’s mum, Jane, at work, giving him [Crowe] updates” on Ferguson’s progress as he rose through the junior grades.

“I ended up meeting Lockie when he was probably 10 at Hahei Motor Camp and he bowled, and bowled, and bowled all day,” Wilkes said.

“Then years later, Marty is playing against him and he has his comeback stopped by Lockie.”

The game would lead Crowe to help facilitate his close friend Wilkes becoming Ferguson’s manager.

“Actually, post that game I got a call about a week or so later from Marty and Steve Wilkins,” Ferguson said.

“They wanted to sort of help me from a managerial point of view, mostly it was Steve Wilkins, who is still currently my manager. We’ve sort of had a very close relationship ever since then.”

“Obviously, Marty was a part of that early on, but me and Steve are very close now, he’s still my manager now and does an epic job for me.”

Ferguson doesn’t downplay the importance of that spring day clash with Crowe on his cricketing career.

“It was a huge turning point in my career for many a reason, but at a very base level, playing against someone who, I was pretty young when he was dominating world cricket, I have sort of small memories of it. Playing against him, even being on the same field is a pretty special feeling,” Ferguson said.

“I guess to have a closer relationship with him and Steve post-cricket even to the point where there was one evening where Wilkie invited us around and I was watching New Zealand vs Sri Lanka with Danny Morrison, Martin Crowe, and Steve at Steve’s place.”

“It was pretty special and the next year. I played for New Zealand, we were talking about that at that point in time. When we were watching that Sri Lanka game, I thought the Black Caps were miles away but obviously [it] wasn’t too far.”

“Marty having a lot of fun talking to Lockie about that [club] game and then Danny on fast bowling,” Wilkes recalled.

A decade on from the game and five years removed from Crowe’s death, the chance to rub shoulders with one of New Zealand’s true cricketing greats is a treasured memory for the men that played that comeback game.

“It’s pretty amazing really, privileged to have done so and also spending time [with him] off the field as well,” Chemaly said.

“Even if you hadn’t seen him play, you knew who he was and you knew how good he was, it made everyone else want to go harder and want to play better and want to play with him,” Davies said.

“I was the manager at Cornwall at the time and he was coming in and helping out, he’d always drop into the office and have a yarn, I had so much respect for the guy, such a lovely man.”

Crowe “influenced everybody in such a great way”, Davies said.

Those influenced extended from players for whom premier cricket would be the pinnacle to others like Guptill-Bunce, who went on to become a professional player.

“At the time you’re there or thereabouts aspiring to be a professional cricketer. And the thing about this, we got the stories and all of that, but just watching him going about his stuff and how simple he made it, talking about batting and being able to relay that in terms of not over-complicating his method and understanding,” Guptill-Bunce said.

“He just kept everything so simple, he talked about his flow of batting which he had. When he was working with you and giving you throw-downs, he actually cared and wanted to be helpful to you,” Davies said.

One tactical thought from the former New Zealand skipper stayed with Guptill-Bunce while he captained his province.

“He was always saying you only ever need eight fielders, that ninth fielder you can just roam with, you can do what you want with, you can mess with the batsman, you can move him to make the batsman think there’s something happening that isn’t. I always thought it was quite interesting.”

Crowe’s return to the place where he had learned the game as a boy also strengthened one of New Zealand’s great cricketing family’s close ties with their club.

Martin’s father, Dave, a former first-class cricketer and Cornwall’s long-time junior chairman, has his ashes buried on a hill overlooking the ground.

“Obviously, Marty was doing his thing and then he got his cancer diagnosis, and he was basically coming to the end of his life,” Davies remembers.

“He came back to a president’s lunch and [Martin’s brother] Jeff Crowe flew all the way over to come to that as well. I had many a wine with Jeff that day, it was great, Marty really, really struggled to be there and you could see that he was quite weak, but his brother had come along.

“Mark Greatbatch was there as well; Marty and Paddy were great mates and Paddy was the president at the time so it was quite emotional really.”

The Crowe Academy and Crowe Scholarship were set up for young players at the club with support of Martin’s mother, Audrey, and his brother Jeff.

“I believe Jeff drops into this day, he’s obviously been match referee in the New Zealand matches over the summer but he drops in to the club and I believe his son trains with one of the senior sides,” Davies said.

“I think [Martin’s cousin] Russell Crowe even came down one day. Everyone couldn’t believe Russell Crowe was there. I don’t even think Jeff was down there that day, I think just with the Cornwall connection, he went and saw his [Martin’s] dad’s seat up on the hill and Martin has obviously got a seat too.”

For Constable Ravlic of the Auckland Police, the story of the weekend where dad got New Zealand’s best ever batsman out, not once, but twice, is ready to be told.

As soon as his children grow up.

“I never ended up playing for the [Auckland] Aces or anything like that. But when I look back at my sort of career with Parnell, I ended up chucking in the towel to go join the police when I was about 24,” he said.

“That moment was probably the best moment of my whole sort of club career. I mean, in terms of people that I’ve got out, it’s, you know, it tends to be number one because it’s one of the best that’s ever played for New Zealand.”

“When we heard that he was in hospital, that was horrible, but it’s again one of those moments that I’ll just never ever forget, you know.

“As I’ve said to a few people, it was kind of one of those experiences that I’ll tell my kids and grandkids as they grow up. Being as significant as it was to be able to play against him and the sort of hype that was coming around it. Then to be able to have that result was even better.”

Ten years have passed, but Ravlic’s dad, Pete, remains as proud of his son as he did when he cheekily introduced himself to Crowe. Pete even recorded a memento of the occasion.

“He heard the radio interview with Martin Crowe the day after, and he saved it on his phone,” Ravlic said.

“Dad said that Crowe was talking about it [the dismissal] and said that it was, you know, pretty decent nut, by all accounts. It’s special.

“It’s one of those moments for him, that in particular, just because of who he was, you know, in terms of the game.”