Martin Crowe the former New Zealand captain who passed away on Thursday at the age of 53 will be statistically remembered by Sri Lankans for scoring that monumental match saving knock of 299 in the first Test at Wellington in January 1991, but more notably for standing his ground over a disputed catch in the second Test at the SSC a year later and being presented a special award for his action by the Sri Lanka Cricket Board president Minister Tyronne Fernando.
The incident took place on the third day of the second Test when New Zealand was fighting hard to stave off defeat after being forced to follow-on. Sri Lanka had made 394 in their first innings and New Zealand were bundled out for 102, their lowest total against Sri Lanka. In their second innings New Zealand put up staunch resistance when Crowe joined John Wright and the pair batted almost throughout the afternoon session putting together a partnership of 159 that enabled New Zealand to avoid an innings defeat - they eventually lost by nine wickets.
However the Test would have ended much earlier had it not been for a disputed catch that ended up by Crowe being given a respite at 39 and then going onto score a magnificent century.
The Daily News reported that incident thus: "At 39 he (Crowe) forced umpire Ignatius Anandappa to revoke a decision by standing his ground after being ruled out. (Asanka) Gurusinha picked up the ball on the rebound off Crowe's bat at silly point and on an appeal by the fielders Anandappa gave Crowe out. But the New Zealand captain was adamant the ball hit the ground before Gurusinha held it and stood his ground. Square leg umpire T.M Samarasinghe confirmed that it was not a catch and Anandappa had to revoke his earlier decision. The unfortunate incident could have been averted had Gurusinha confirmed the fairness of the catch."
 Martin Crowe batting against Sri Lanka during his monumental innings of 299 at Basin Reserve, Wellington in 1991. The wicket-keeper is Hashan Tillakaratne.
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Crowe went onto score a delightful 107 in 159 minutes of sheer classy batting an innings which he described as "the best hundred of my career". With the help of Wright (50) and Adam Parore (60) helped New Zealand put up a much respectable total of 361. But it left Sri Lanka with the task of scoring only 70 for victory which they achieved quite easily losing one wicket. Crowe's batting was against the wiles of spinners Muthiah Muralitharan (match bag of seven wickets), Jayananda Warnaweera (six wickets) and Don Anurasiri (two wickets) and fast bowler Dulip Liyanage (three wickets). The victory gave Sri Lanka a 1-0 win in the two-Test series.
At the official dinner hosted by the Sri Lanka Cricket Board for the New Zealand team at Hotel Taj Samudra, the Lanka Board presented the New Zealand captain Martin Crowe with a special award in a rare gesture of honour.
In presenting the award to Crowe, Board president Minister Tyronne Fernando said, "We are presenting this special award to Martin Crowe not only because of his captain's knock but at the way Martin controlled the situation at the moment of crisis when he was given out. I was in Parliament at that time and watching him on television and I thought he handled that matter with great aplomb and dignity." The tour nearly did not materialize when a bomb blast in front of the team hotel killed the Navy commander and four others and resulted in New Zealand wanting to abort the tour. However thanks to the strong measures taken by New Zealand Cricket Council chairman Peter McDermott and team manager Leif Dearsley the tour went ahead with a rescheduled itinerary. Five of the New Zealand players from the original squad cried off and returned home on compassionate grounds and were replaced.
Mahanama's Tribute
Sri Lanka opener Roshan Mahanama who scored back to back hundreds (153 and 109) in the two Test matches played at Moratuwa and SSC said in a tribute to Crowe:
"Martin's demise from this world was too early for someone like him. He had done so much for the game. He was one cricketer who with Sri Lanka changed the course of one-day cricket. A player who had a lot of passion towards the game he gave his heart out to it. Only in the last 15 years have players started to make big scores but during his era if you had a Test batting average in the 40s you were considered a very good player. He was a brilliant cricketer and stats would not justify his talents."
Sri Lankan cricket fans had the privilege of watching this master craftsman on three occasions when he first toured with Geoff Howarth's team in 1984 as a 21-year-old, then with elder brother Jeff Crowe's side in 1987 and in 1992 when he captained the New Zealand side.
When Crowe scored that mammoth 299 against Sri Lanka with Andrew Jones (186) they shared a world record partnership of 467 (since broken twice by Sri Lanka).
Despite the record and the fact that he had led his team from the brink of defeat to a draw against Sri Lanka, Crowe was disappointed that he just failed to become the first New Zealander to score 300 in a Test match.
"I feel rather as if I had been climbing Everest, and pulled a hamstring on the last stride," he told New Zealand Herald.
He was dismissed off the third last ball of the match caught behind by wicket-keeper Hashan Tillakaratne off Sri Lanka captain Arjuna Ranatunga.
Recalling that moment that led to his dismissal Crowe wrote: "After 10 hours of holding my concentration, I stood at the wicket and the thought entered my mind for the first time ever, 'Wow, I will be the first ever to score 300 for New Zealand'. It stole my focus. As the bowler, Arjuna Ranatunga ran in I forgot my mantra: watch the ball, watch the ball. The ball was delivered and I never saw it, it became a blur."
Crowe flashed his bat and the ball took the edge, flying low and hard to Hashan Tillakaratne, who caught it inches from the ground. "As the reality of what happened struck me, I began to storm off the field ... I was in shock. At that moment I knew I had blown the very moment I waited my whole cricketing life for."
The score of 299 stood as the highest individual Test score for New Zealand for 23 years until Brendon McCullum broke it with 302 against India at the same venue in 2014.
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