Sachin Tendulkar clears his front leg and drills Tama Canning flat and hard into the long-on boundary, the ball bouncing just in front of the rope. He then dispatches Canning higher and farther over the long-on boundary. Just like that, Tendulkar hits ten 20 runs off two balls.

Twenty off two?

Yes, sir, rocket-powered scoring was one of the features of Cricket Max, a format devised by the late Martin Crowe, with some help from his brother Jeff. Max rewarded traditional hitting in the V, into a target area called the "Max zone", placed at each end that included the sector covering the long-on and long-off boundaries. It was essentially a double-scoring zone, turning fours into eights and sixes into 12s. Check out this video of Roger Twose maxing out the zone to clatter 43 off a mere seven balls.

The Max zone added a different strategic dimension to Max Cricket, which was a regular fixture in the New Zealand domestic calendar from 1996 to 2002, with the six provinces competing for the title. Each match ran for three hours, under floodlights, and Cricket Max seemingly promoted itself as cricket's version of the country's premier sport, rugby.

The first-ever Cricket Max match was played in February 1996, between a New Zealand side (Max Blacks) and an All-Stars XI. Though the format didn't appeal to the traditionalists - footage from that game shows the likes of Dean Jones and Heath Streak playing in shorts - it provided the New Zealand public with something different.

Each game consisted of four innings of ten overs each. Eight balls were bowled per over, which was later reduced to six balls per over. The format preceded T20 cricket by about eight years.

The Max Zone, marked on the outfield in Wellington © Getty Images

The Hong Kong Sixes came into existence in 1992, four years before Cricket Max, and although it prioritised six-hitting, which became key in T20, it did so almost to the exclusion of other aspects of the game, becoming hit-and-giggle cricket. Whereas Cricket Max aimed to miniaturise multi-innings cricket and speed it up.

It's fair to say that Max was a forerunner to T20 cricket, especially considering the free hit for a front-foot no-ball. The free-hit rule continues to live on through T20s, and even T10 cricket, these days. According to another rule in Cricket Max, a batter would be "struck out" if they didn't score 20 off their first 25 balls in their first innings, which was again something of a precursor to the "retiring out" concept in T20 cricket.

Max also originally had four stumps at either end, but once some of the more funky aspects like that were done away with, it became serious business and a seriously futuristic format. Crowe even tried to take it global - five Super Max games were played against touring international sides in New Zealand, though these matches don't count as internationals in the records.

The final Super Max game between New Zealand and India in December 2002 in Christchurch - the one that featured Tendulkar pinging the Max zone - provided the first glimpse of Brendon McCullum's short-format firepower. Promoted to open the batting in the second innings, he cracked 60 off 28 balls at a strike rate of almost 215. About five years later he would smash 158 not out on the opening night of the IPL, at a similar strike rate.

Cricket Max came to a screeching halt after that 2002 game, and shortly after, T20 cricket took centre stage globally. In February 2005, New Zealand featured in the first-ever T20I, against Australia in Auckland, and the following year NZC launched their own domestic T20 tournament.

Cricket Max had its fair share of gimmicks, especially in its early years, but, to borrow from the Joker in The Dark Knight, it wasn't a monster; it was just ahead of the curve.

Deivarayan Muthu is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

 

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