Martin Crowe - the man who kept Sri Lanka's cricket flame alive

Martin Crowe and Sri Lankan cheerleader Percy Abeysekara were friends and once the New Zealand captain gave away his Man of the Match award to Percy.

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New Zealand's women's team are in Colombo this week for their Women's World Cup fixtures against the hosts and Pakistan and local fans can't help but recall how former skipper Martin Crowe once played a match-winning innings off the field — saving Sri Lanka from cricketing isolation.

Barely two years after Sri Lanka gained Test status, the civil war broke out. In 1987, a deadly bomb blast at the Colombo Central Bus Station killed more than a hundred people, bringing the island to its knees. The New Zealand team was touring at the time and the series was abandoned midway.

For the next five years, no international team dared set foot on Sri Lankan soil. That forced several players to retire prematurely, including their charismatic captain Ranjan Madugalle. He was just 29.