Ronald George Draper (born 24 December 1926) is a South African former

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er who played in two

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in 1950. He played

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

from 1945 to 1959. Since 3 September 2021 he has been the oldest living Test cricketer.

Playing career

Draper was born in

Oudtshoorn Oudtshoorn (, ), the "ostrich capital of the world", is a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa, located between the Swartberg mountains to the north and the Outeniqua Mountains to the south. Two ostrich-feather booms, during 1865–1 ...

Cape Province The Province of the Cape of Good Hope ( af, Provinsie Kaap die Goeie Hoop), commonly referred to as the Cape Province ( af, Kaapprovinsie) and colloquially as The Cape ( af, Die Kaap), was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequen ...

, and was educated at

Grey High School Grey High School is a semi-private English speaking high school (grades 8 - 12) for boys situated in the suburb of Mill Park in Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is one of the top sporting schools in the country, ...

Port Elizabeth Gqeberha (), formerly Port Elizabeth and colloquially often referred to as P.E., is a major seaport and the most populous city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, Sou ...

. Batting at number three, on his 19th birthday he made a century on his first-class debut for Eastern Province in December 1945, making the top score in the match. He began keeping wicket for Eastern Province in 1946–47, which he did irregularly for the rest of his career. Draper was selected as wicket-keeper for a South African XI that played the Australian touring team in 1949–50. A few weeks later he made 86 opening the batting for Eastern Province against the Australians. After South Africa lost the first three Tests to Australia, Draper was one of five new players the selectors brought in for the Fourth Test, four of whom, including Draper, were making their Test debuts. Batting at number three, he made only 15, but the match was drawn and he kept his place for the Fifth Test, when he made 7 and 3 in an innings defeat. He played no further Tests, but remained a batsman in the

Currie Cup The Currie Cup is South Africa's premier domestic rugby union competition, played each winter and spring (June to October), featuring teams representing either entire provinces or substantial regions within provinces. Although it is the premier ...

for some years. In his first two matches in the 1952–53 season, now opening the batting for

Griqualand West Griqualand West is an area of central South Africa with an area of 40,000 km2 that now forms part of the Northern Cape Province. It was inhabited by the Griqua people – a semi-nomadic, Afrikaans-speaking nation of mixed-race origin, wh ...

, he scored 145 and 8 against

Rhodesia Rhodesia (, ), officially from 1970 the Republic of Rhodesia, was an unrecognised state in Southern Africa from 1965 to 1979, equivalent in territory to modern Zimbabwe. Rhodesia was the ''de facto'' successor state to the British colony of S ...

, and 129 and 177 against

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, the first time anyone had scored a century in each innings in the Currie Cup. In each of these two matches he reached a century before

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on the first day. They were his last first-class centuries. In his last first-class match, against Transvaal B in 1959–60, he made 39 out of Griqualand West's first-innings total of 77. His younger brother Errol played for Eastern Province in 1951–52 and for Griqualand West from 1953–54 to 1967–68. With the death of John Watkins on 3 September 2021, Draper became the oldest living Test cricketer.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Draper, Ronald 1926 births Living people People from Oudtshoorn South African people of British descent South Africa Test cricketers South African cricketers Eastern Province cricketers Griqualand West cricketers Cricketers from the Western Cape