Hadlee was signed as his replacement, but Rice began legal proceedings against Nottinghamshire, who were forced to take him back, agreeing to a compromise where he was reinstated as a player, although not as captain.
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“The ten years I had a Notts County Cricket club were probably the best ten years of my life we were a family as a cricket [team]…[and]Clive was a strong part of that”.
“It’s an incredibly sad day”.
Tributes to Rice were paid after the announcement of his death.
He is credited with helping persuade Kevin Pietersen to qualify to play global cricket for England. He was the first person who gave me my first opportunity in England.
“He was a really tough character on the field”.
So, he had to wait 20 years to finally make his worldwide debut, captaining South Africa at the age of 42 when the country returned from isolation in 1991 with a three-game One-Day global series in India.
“In time you have also got to look at the positives”, added Pietersen.
Only months later he was controversially left out of the squads for the one-off test against the West Indies and the 1992 Cricket World Cup.
His sporting prowess was never in doubt and we will never know just how great he could have been. “In fact, it’s a miracle”, Rice had told “Sport24” about the treatment in Bengaluru.
Pietersen, who had focused more on his bowling at the start of his career, said: “He saw in me more than I saw in myself”.
“Ricey always said to me to bat at number six in my first season in county cricket and that he wanted me to score me 1,000 runs”. I was tied down onto a table and this cyber-knife machine was floating around, and then specifically targeting that cancer cell in my brain, and radiating it to take it out. At the time he was chosen to tour with South Africa, they possessed the strongest side in their history, and, given his evident talent and self-belief, there was little doubt he would have had a stellar career.
“He tended to measure himself against quality opposition in county cricket, particularly the global Test players who were playing as overseas players”, the New Zealander said.
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But he was admitted to a South African hospital two days ago, suffering from severe stomach pains, and a Cricket South Africa spokesman confirmed that Rice died early Tuesday. I asked him how he was and he said “fine”.
