The world of cricket is deeply saddened by the death of New Zealand's greatest batsman of all time, Martin Crowe, Thursday. He was 53.
The legendary Kiwi batsman was battling lymphoma, which is a type of cancer, since 2012. Martin is the brother of Jeff Crowe, who had captained New Zealand earlier.
"It is with heavy hearts that the family of Martin Crowe, MBE advise his death," his family said in a media release.
"Diagnosed in September 2014 with terminal double hit lymphoma he passed away peacefully today, Thursday 3rd March in Auckland surrounded by family."
"The family request privacy at this time."
The Black Caps legend is also the cousin of Hollywood superstar Russell Crowe, who is deeply hurt with the demise of Martin.
Martin made his Test debut for New Zealand against Australia at the age of 19 in 1982. The game was played at the Basin Reserve.
Martin quickly established himself as one of the premier batsmen of his times and re-wrote the records for New Zealand.
The right-handed batting great played 77 Test matches for New Zealand and scored 5,444 runs at an average of 45.36. His highest score of 299 came against Sri Lanka in Wellington and was the highest Test score by any Black Caps batsman. That record belonged to him for a long time until Brendon McCullum broke it with his triple ton at Basin Reserve against India.
Martin Crowe's did something similar in the 1992 Cricket World Cup what Brendon McCullum did for his side in the ICC World Cup 2015. Martin transformed the New Zealand side into a brute force in that tournament and helped them reach the semi-final. They had to bow down to Imran Khan's Pakistan as they were too hot to handle and Pakistan eventually went on to win that World Cup.
McCullum has often being compared to Martin Crowe in recent times because of his inspirational leadership qualities. The cricketing fraternity reacted to the legend's death on Twitter. Let us take a look some of the tweets:
