Cricket South Africa (CSA) chief executive Gerald Majola has said that the board was in a state of “great shock” on hearing of the death of iconic cricket journalist Peter Roebuck.
Roebuck had plunged six storeys to his death from a Cape Town hotel room on Saturday.
Majola said that Roebuck was a fierce critic of South African cricket in the unhappy days of the rebel tours, but he made a personal tour of the country after the completion of the unity process and the establishment of the United Cricket Board of South Africa.
“CSA has lost a good friend. My late brother, Khaya, who was in charge of the development programmes, took him on tours of the various townships and, from being one of our harshest critics, he became one of our best supporters,” Sport24 quoted Majola, as saying.
Majola also praised Roebuck’s passion for development and equal opportunities for all players in South African cricket.
“He personally arranged bursaries so that some of the township players emerging at that time could gain experience by playing club cricket in England. Peter had homes in both South Africa and Australia and he had a tremendous passion for the emergence of a Proteas team that would accurately reflect the demographics of our country and be truly representative of all South Africans. In that way he shared CSA’s vision for cricket in this country,” he said.
“One of his most recent columns was about the progress being made to bring more ethnic African players through the system to represent the Proteas. As always, his writing was both challenging and thought-provoking,” he added.
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