Former Nottinghamshire and South Africa captain Clive Rice passes away at the age of 66.
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Rice had recently travelled to India for treatment for his cancer-related tumour in Bangalore.
Scans in South Africa found that Rice’s tumour was too deep down in his brain for a neurosurgeon to conduct invasive surgery to remove it.
He led them to the county championship title in 1981 and 1987.
After making his first-class debut in 1969, Rice did not play worldwide cricket till 1991 when he was 41.
He also captained the Proteas in their first one-day global and continued playing first class cricket until his retirement in 1994, finishing his career at Natal.
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Rice represented in just three ODIs for South Africa with his prime years coinciding with South Africa’s isolation from world cricket during the 1970s and 80s. Pietersen, who went on to global honours with England, wrote in his autobiography that Rice was “a great early influence on me”. He had a far more successful first-class career where he amassed 26,331 runs at an average of 40.95 and took 930 wickets at 22.49 from 482 matches.
