{"id":718572,"date":"2026-06-06T07:47:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T07:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/718572\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T07:47:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T07:47:15","slug":"williamson-root-and-the-real-legacy-of-test-crickets-fab-four-shines-bright-at-lords","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/718572\/","title":{"rendered":"Williamson, Root and the real legacy of Test cricket\u2019s \u2018Fab Four\u2019 shines bright at Lord\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a poignant portrait unveiled in the Long Room of Lord\u2019s on the eve of the start<\/a> of the Test summer<\/a>, the memory of the late, great New Zealand batter Martin Crowe<\/a> remembered with a striking portrayal by artist Jason Brooks. Ten years on from his passing, it has been a special week for the Crowe family, with daughter Emma ringing the five-minute bell on the first day of the tourists\u2019 Test against the England s at a ground with which her father had long been linked. A formative summer was spent on the MCC cricket staff in 1981, a stint that included a first century on the famous ground for the MCC Young Cricketers. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe dedication, care and attention he has given to this portrait reflects the same commitment Papa brought to the game of cricket throughout his life,\u201d Emma said. \u201cTo unveil the portrait here at Lord\u2019s, and at the same age Papa was when his name first appeared on the Honours Board, makes the moment even more special. It is a remarkable tribute to his legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MartinMartin Crowe’s daughter Emma rang the five-minute bell at Lord’s (Getty)<\/p>\n

Crowe twice made Test tons at the grand old ground as he established himself as one of his nation\u2019s finest ever cricketers. With elegance and elan, he closed his career as New Zealand\u2019s most prolific run-getter (5444 in Tests) and century-maker (17) \u2013 only the emergence of Kane Williamson<\/a> has seen him surpassed in the minds of most as the greatest Blackcaps batter.<\/p>\n

\"1983:1983: Crowe was one of the finest Test cricketers produced by New Zealand (Getty)<\/p>\n

But there is a different, distinct reason why Crowe\u2019s name has remained prominent in the 10 years since his sad passing<\/a> from lymphoma. At the end of his playing days, the Kiwi had established himself as a sage, shrewd and sharp analyst of the game he had mastered, writing regular columns for ESPN Cricinfo. In August of 2014, one such piece had been headlined \u201cTest cricket’s young Fab Four\u201d, grouping together the four batters who came to define a cricketing generation.<\/p>\n

It did not take a cricketing genius to tip Williamson, England\u2019s Joe Root<\/a>, Australia\u2019s Steve Smith<\/a> and India\u2019s Virat Kohli<\/a> for greatness, but a scan back through the column reveals its striking prescience. \u201cMy sense is that they will all take turns as the No 1 Test batsman,\u201d Crowe correctly predicted. \u201cAll four have similar talent, hunger, ambition and responsibility. All four will go on to captain their countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

At that time, the quartet had a combined tally of 22 Test hundreds; now, that collective mark stands at 141. Williamson and Root may have missed out in each innings at Lord\u2019s,<\/a> but it is close to a statistical certainty that they will swell the total of tons for these modern masters at some point in this series. <\/p>\n

And yet, over this last year or so, there has been a certain sense of sadness surrounding the Fab Four; a feeling of the expiration of a distinct epoch within Test cricket\u2019s rich history. Kohli may have conquered the Indian Premier League again<\/a> with Royal Challengers Bengaluru but has already slipped into red-ball retirement; Williamson no longer possesses a New Zealand central contract and arrived here fresh from a coaching stint. Smith has recently recaptured past glories but now spends as much time in New York as anywhere else. Root\u2019s pursuit of Sachin Tendulkar\u2019s record tally will keep him ploughing on but Father Time\u2019s gaze from between the Mound and Tavern Stands has been felt keenly this week.<\/p>\n

\"KaneKane Williamson may not have long left in Test cricket (Getty)<\/p>\n

“It’s always a special Test,” Williamson said wistfully ahead of what may prove his last international visit<\/a>. \u201cI’ve played for a while and you only get a handful of opportunities to come to Lord’s and play.\u201d No-one is quite sure exactly when an arch classicist will call time on his career; the soon-to-be 36-year-old is clearly, though, feeling twilight\u2019s embrace, muttering vaguely about crossing bridges when they come when asked about retirement in December.<\/p>\n

He and Smith are due to duel again in a four-Test series on Australian soil at the turn of the year. Smith, who has more Test runs than any other tourist at Lord\u2019s, may yet eye one last English summer beyond that. But there is a point in the not-too-distant future where it could only be Root left as a relic of a bygone age.<\/p>\n

\"SteveSteve Smith and Joe Root may yet share one last Ashes battle (Getty)<\/p>\n

The Independent has tried, in the past,<\/a> to perform Crowe\u2019s task and ascertain the next group of young batters that may come to pick up the mantle, but the truth is that none will. The cricketing landscape into which Williamson, Root, Smith and Kohli stepped no longer exists; building one\u2019s career primarily over five days, as each managed, feels close to an impossibility in this attention economy.<\/p>\n

Great batters will still come \u2013 and go. Harry Brook is no less of a talent as the fellow Yorkshireman he bats behind but has already felt distinctly contemporary pressures, with his withdrawal from the IPL revealing the rancour and ructions increasingly prevalent within a fracturing sport. The teenage rampage of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi <\/a>has revealed a statistical outlier and a freakish phenom \u2013 international cricket may soon feel his wrath, and his talent adapted into a Test technique, yet the 15-year-old has a game grooved for the changing cricketing world he has stepped into.<\/p>\n

It will take want and willpower for any cricketer to replicate the longevity of the \u201cFab Four\u201d, each a great ambassador for the format.<\/a> The very future of Test cricket is constantly under threat, with uncertainty over the next iteration of the World Test Championship<\/a> (WTC) and an erosion at the margins in the volume being provided. Take Williamson, for example, who had made just three Test appearances in 18 months before arriving in Belfast last week for this four-match European tour.<\/p>\n

\"VaibhavVaibhav Sooryavanshi feels a batting phenom for the modern cricketing age (AP)<\/p>\n

Crowe, of course, had seen this all coming. It was he who proposed a version of the WTC in 2009, culminating in a final at Lord\u2019s \u2013 where else? \u2013 each year. “‘If we don’t do something soon then the bottom teams in particular will wilt away and the bottom will fall out of the pinnacle format of the game,” he said at the time. “Test cricket needs a meaning and a new motivation among all these other shorter-version competitions that are scheduled every year.\u201d 17 years on, his words ring ever truer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was a poignant portrait unveiled in the Long Room of Lord\u2019s on the eve of the start…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":718573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-718572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}