Clive Edward Butler Rice (23 July 1949 – 28 July 2015) was a South African international cricketer. An all-rounder, Rice ended his First Class cricket career with a batting average of 40.95 and a bowling average of 22.49. He captained Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club from 1979 to 1987. His career coincided directly with South Africa's sporting isolation, and his international experience was limited to his post-prime days. He played three One Day Internationals for

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

following the country's return from sporting isolation. He was controversially left out of the squads for the one-off Test against

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

and the 1992 Cricket World Cup. Despite this he is widely regarded as one of the best all-rounders of his generation, alongside

Imran Khan Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi ( ur}; born 5 October 1952) is a Pakistani politician and former Cricket captain who served as the 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan from August 2018 to until April 2022, when he was ousted through a no-confidenc ...

, Ian Botham,

Kapil Dev Kapil Dev Ramlal Nikhanj (Pronunciation: əpiːl deːʋ born 6 January 1959) is an Indian former cricketer. He was a fast-medium bowler and a hard-hitting middle-order batsman, and was named by '' Wisden'' as the Indian Cricketer of the Cen ...

and his county team-mate

Richard Hadlee Sir Richard John Hadlee (born 3 July 1951) is a New Zealand former cricketer. Hadlee is widely regarded as one of the greatest all-rounders in cricket history, and amongst the very finest fast bowlers. Hadlee was appointed an MBE in the 1980 ...

. On 28 July 2015, Rice died in hospital at the age of 66, suffering from a brain tumour.

Early and personal life

Rice was born to Patrick and AngelaSproat, p. 341. on 23 July 1949 in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...

Transvaal Province The Province of the Transvaal ( af, Provinsie van Transvaal), commonly referred to as the Transvaal (; ), was a province of South Africa from 1910 until 1994, when a new constitution subdivided it following the end of apartheid. The name "Trans ...

Union of South Africa The Union of South Africa ( nl, Unie van Zuid-Afrika; af, Unie van Suid-Afrika; ) was the historical predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the Cape, Natal, Tran ...

. Rice's grandfather Philip Salkeld Syndercombe Bower played cricket for

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

while his brother Richard was selected for Transvaal but was unable to play due to exams. Rice worked for a street-lighting company called Envirolight in Johannesburg and his wife Susan heads a Sports Tour and Bush safari company. The couple have two children.

Career

Domestic career

Rice began his career with

Transvaal Transvaal is a historical geographic term associated with land north of (''i.e.'', beyond) the Vaal River in South Africa. A number of states and administrative divisions have carried the name Transvaal. * South African Republic (1856–1902; af, ...

in 1969 and was called up for South Africa's (ultimately cancelled) tour of Australia in 1971–72. In South African domestic cricket he successfully led the 1980s

, known as the "Mean Machine", to three Castle Currie Cups and other one-day competition victories. Toward the end of his playing career, he played for and captained

Natal NATAL or Natal may refer to: Places * Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, a city in Brazil * Natal, South Africa (disambiguation), a region in South Africa ** Natalia Republic, a former country (1839–1843) ** Colony of Natal, a former British colony ( ...

. He became the first cricketer to score 5000 runs and to take 500 wickets in

List A cricket List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the numb ...

history

Career in English domestic cricket

Rice played for

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The trad ...

in the English County Championship in a side that also featured internationals

and Derek Randall. As captain, he led the side to the

County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It bec ...

title in both 1981 and 1987, winning the prestigious award of being named a

Wisden cricketer of the year The ''Wisden'' Cricketers of the Year are cricketers selected for the honour by the annual publication ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', based primarily on their "influence on the previous English season". The award began in 1889 with the naming ...

for his exploits in 1981. He later played for

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

International cricket

Along with other South African players, excluded from international cricket by the

sporting boycott of South Africa South Africa under apartheid was subjected to a variety of international boycotts, including on sporting contacts. There was some debate about whether the aim of the boycott was to oppose segregation in sport or apartheid in general, with the la ...

due to his country's policy of

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

, Rice joined the controversial

World Series Cricket World Series Cricket (WSC) was a commercial professional cricket competition staged between 1977 and 1979 which was organised by Kerry Packer and his Australian television network, Nine Network. WSC ran in commercial competition to establish ...

setup. During the 1980s, a number of rebel cricket teams visited South Africa to play unofficial "Test" matches. Rice captained the home side for the majority of these fixtures. Rice was able to make his debut in official international cricket in 1991, when, aged 42, he played in—and captained—South Africa's first One Day International, in a match against

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Eden Gardens The Eden Gardens is a cricket ground in Kolkata, India. Established in 1864, it is the oldest and second-largest cricket stadium in India and third-largest in the world. The stadium currently has a capacity of 66,000. Eden Gardens is often re ...

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

. Rice finished with averages of 13 with the bat and 57 with the ball from his three One Day International matches.

Later career

After retirement Rice worked as coach for Nottinghamshire and encouraged

Kevin Pietersen Kevin Peter Pietersen (born 27 June 1980) is a cricket commentator, conservationist, and former England international cricket player. He is a right-handed batsman and occasional off spin bowler who played in all three formats for England betw ...

to leave South Africa to qualify for

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Opinions about match fixing

In September 2010, Rice claimed in an interview to

Fox News The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...

that betting syndicates were involved in the deaths of Pakistan coach

Bob Woolmer Robert Andrew Woolmer (14 May 1948 – 18 March 2007) was an English cricket coach, cricketer, and a Sportscaster, commentator. He played in 19 Test cricket, Test matches and six One Day Internationals for the England cricket team and later coach ...

and former South African captain

Hansie Cronje Wessel Johannes "Hansie" Cronje (25 September 1969 – 1 June 2002) was a South African international cricketer and captain of the South African national cricket team in the 1990s. A right-handed all-rounder, as captain Cronje led his team to vi ...

. Fox Sports quoted Rice as saying: "These mafia betting syndicates do not stop at anything and they do not care who gets in their way." Former Pakistan coach Geoff Lawson had earlier told Fox Sports that match-fixing "might not be about money, it might be about extortion, and all the things that go on".

Illness and death

Rice was diagnosed with a brain tumour in September 1998 and received treatment in

Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...

, Germany. In February 2015, Rice collapsed at his house in

and scans at a local hospital found that, as his tumour was located deep down, it could not be removed by a neurosurgeon by invasive surgery. Rice then went to Health Care Global in

Bangalore Bangalore (), List of renamed places in India, officially Bengaluru (), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan area, metropolitan population of a ...

, India and received robotic radiation treatment to have the tumour removed. The surgery was successful and Rice returned home in March 2015. On the morning of 28 July 2015, Rice died from

sepsis Sepsis, formerly known as septicemia (septicaemia in British English) or blood poisoning, is a life-threatening condition that arises when the body's response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs. This initial stage is follo ...

in the Morningside hospital in Johannesburg.

References

Sources

* Sproat, I. (1988) ''The Cricketers' Who's Who 1988'', Willow Books: London. .

External links

*
Sunday Times article 3 January 2010
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rice, Clive 1949 births 2015 deaths South African cricketers South Africa One Day International cricketers South African cricket captains KwaZulu-Natal cricketers Nottinghamshire cricketers Nottinghamshire cricket captains Scotland cricketers Gauteng cricketers World Series Cricket players Wisden Cricketers of the Year South African cricket coaches Cricketers from Johannesburg White South African people South African people of British descent South African people of Scottish descent Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Alumni of St John's College (Johannesburg) Deaths from sepsis D. H. Robins' XI cricketers T. N. Pearce's XI cricketers