Image Credit- AP
Mike Procter, the renowned all-round player and South
Africa’s first post-Apartheid coach, passed away at the age of 77 due to
complications from heart surgery.
Procter, who is widely regarded as one of his nation’s finest players, played
just seven Test matches in his international career, all of which came against
Australia in 1966–1967 and 1969–1970. This was because of South Africa’s
sporting isolation in the 1970s and 1980s.
But in those, he took 41 wickets at a rate of 15.02,
bowling with exceptional seam and swing that was renowned for being delivered
“off the wrong foot”—that is, releasing the ball early in his
delivery stride, quickly, and frequently from unusual angles, wide on the
crease or from around the wicket.
His finest stats, 6 for 73, came in the second innings of his final Test match
at Port Elizabeth, where he helped South Africa win by a crushing 323 runs. He
played in seven Test matches, with the other one ending in a draw.
Procter was also a very good ball-striker; in the
second of his two Test series, he averaged 34.83 and led South Africa’s lost
generation, which included Barry Richards, Graeme and Peter Pollock, captain
Ali Bacher, and a historic 4-0 thumping of Bill Lawry’s Australia in 1969–70.
His best results, though, were confined to domestic cricket after that. He
played for Rhodesia in the Currie Cup, first for Natal, and most notably for
Gloucestershire, where he was a mainstay for 14 seasons between 1968 and 1981.
Procter was appointed as the team’s head coach
following South Africa’s readmission to international cricket. He oversaw the
team’s historic comeback to Test cricket against the West Indies in Bridgetown
and their 1992 World Cup campaign, where he led the team to the semi-finals
before they were defeated by England in Sydney due to the tournament’s infamous
rain rules.
Later, he was South Africa’s convenor of selectors and officiated ICC matches
from 2002 to 2008. He is left by his wife Maryne and two daughters. He passed
away in a hospital close to his Durban home.