Clive Rice, born 23 July 1949, was one of the greatest all-rounders of his day, on par with the likes of Garry Sobers, Imran Khan and Ian Botham — a huge force with bat and ball. Cruelly, his career coincided with the years of isolation faced by South Africa. Arunabha Sengupta looks back at the career of the man who remains a legendary name around the world, especially for his exploits for Transvaal and Nottinghamshire.
Taking the reins
July 1979. The Gloucestershire side of the late 70s was always a terrifying prospect for the other county teams. The top order was packed with oozing talent, mostly of Pakistani pedigree in the form of Sadiq Mohammad and Zaheer Abbas. Down the order followed Mike Procter, the mercurial South African, who could score a scorching century and claim a hat-trick in the same match. Indeed, he achieved the feat twice. The bowling line up also contained the experience of the magnificently named Brian Brain, and the off-spinning stolidity of John Childs — both towering figures of the county landscape.
That morning, Procter and Brain were making the ball zip and move at Trent Bridge. One after another, the Nottinghamshire batsmen struggled and perished. It required something special to counter the genius of Procter. Fortunately for the Notts, they had in their ranks someone who matched the Natal all-rounder in almost every aspect, in nationality as well as supreme ability with bat and ball.
Clive Rice counter-attacked, with powerful drives and blistering cuts. Procter kept knocking over batsmen at the other end and Rice continued to pile on his runs. By the time the senior South African all-rounder had castled the younger man, Rice had stroked his way to 129. Nottinghamshire ended the day with the innings closed at 368 for nine. From the late order, Richard Hadlee had managed 41, the second highest score for the side.
The next morning Rice went after the visiting team with the ball. Generating movement at serious pace, he picked up five wickets, including Procter caught behind for five. The Gloucestershire innings lasted just 41.1 overs, falling away for 116. Almost as soon as they followed on, Rice sent Sadiq Mohammad’s stumps flying. Zaheer Abbas and Martin Partridge provided some resistance, but on the third morning, Rice came back to skittle out the tail. Nottinghamshire triumphed by eight wickets.
The astounding all-round performance was not the first of the season.
In May, Rice had walked in at No. 3 against the touring Sri Lankans and had struck his way to an accomplished 68. He had followed it up by blasting out 5 wickets for 29, including Bandula Warnapura, Anura Tennekoon, Roy Dias and Duleep Mendis. Notts had won by 10 wickets.
In June, he had hammered 81 and 41 and taken 6 for 49 to rout Hampshire by 6 wickets. In the very next match he had hit 63 and 53 in another victory, this time against Northamptonshire. His claims could no longer be ignored.
After the match against Gloucestershire, Nottinghamshire manager Ken Taylor made an announcement that rubbed many a committee member the wrong way. Rice was appointed captain of the side. In one and a half years, the career of the all-rounder had come a full circle.
To Packer and back
It was just a year and a bit earlier that Rice had been wooed by World Series Cricket, at a time when the Nottinghamshire management were vocal critics of Kerry Packer‘s wheelings and dealings. The Trent Bridge hierarchy had frowned on his dalliance with the anti-establishmentarians. They had voted against offering him captaincy. They had also scratched his name from the staff list.
Richard Hadlee had been drafted as a replacement in 1978, perhaps the only man worthy enough shoulders to carry a similar burden of both batting and bowling. Finally, the thought of protracted legal battles between club and player had made the management retain Rice as a player. However, the veteran Mike Smedley had been persisted with as captain.
Rice had celebrated his retention with his best ever year with the bat. Three centuries had been notched against Somerset, Hampshire and Lancashire, followed by 2 double-hundreds, against Lancashire and Glamorgan. He had ended with 1,871 runs at 66.82. For good measure he had also picked up 41 wickets at 20.36.
When the English season was over, Rice had made his way to Australia. He still smarted from the way he had been chosen for the Australian tour of 1972 only to realise that it would be called off. Packer’s parallel cricket world had been his only ticket to the arena where he could at last rub shoulders with the best talent in the world. No county management in their stuffy ivory towers could ever stop him.
And his coiled ambitions had been unleashed in spectacular manner. It was a limited-overs match between World XI and West Indies at VLF Park, on one of the fastest wickets he had ever seen. Andy Roberts, Joel Garner, Brendan Julien and Wayne Daniel had demolished the World XI batting for 102. And then Imran Khan, Mike Procter, Garth le Roux and Rice had put the West Indians on the mat. Among the riches of batting including Viv Richards, Clive Lloyd, Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes, only Collis King had been able to reach double figures. Rice had bowled furiously fast, and his figures read 7.3-3-16-3, Lloyd and Julien among his victims. And then, Joel Garner the last man, had prepared to faced him.
The West Indian score at that time read 67 for 9. Rice had sprinted in and let one fly. The ball had struck Garner on the glove, sending his bat to mid-wicket, one glove to cover and the other to extra-cover. The ‘Big Bird’ had broken a finger and had walked away. World XI had triumphed by 35 runs. Rice had stepped back into the pavilion with a feeling of apprehension, wondering if Packer would send him back to South Africa for his hostile bowling. However, the tycoon had remarked that it was the best game of cricket he had seen in the entire World Series Cup.
Back in England, Rice had ruled the grounds with both bat and ball. His dominance had been absolute. His appointment as captain could have been cause for peevishness, but not surprise. And Rice celebrated in style. When the visiting Indians crossed path with the Notts in late August, he captured four wickets in each innings — including Dilip Vengsarkar twice — and scored a crucial 45 to win a tense, low-scoring match.
Within a year he settled comfortably into the seat of Nottinghamshire leadership and was on the way to engineering an amazing rejuvenation of the county’s cricketing fortunes.
So near yet so far
County cricket was the life line for this extraordinary all-rounder, to reveal to the world that he was up there with the very best names in the game.
Rice started playing cricket for Transvaal Nuffield XI in 1967 and showed unmistakable glimpses of his potential. Within two years, he was promoted to the Transvaal B team during the 1969-70 season. The very next year he got into Transvaal A team and earned a call to the South African cricket team to tour Australia in 1971-72.
Meteoric though the rise was, it could not have been timed any worse. Rice was unfortunate by the time of his birth. His entire career fitted into South African isolation as if moulded out of the same cast — except for the very last stretch where he was propelled by the fire that he managed to keep burning inside him, long after reaching years which is called middle-age for the common man, and old in cricketing parlance.
Limited to domestic encounters of the Currie Cup, Rice bowled with skill and success. However, his opportunities with the bat were few, with a strong Transvaal line up restricting his forays to the wicket.
To the county summit
Ultimately Rice found his niche when he arrived at Trent Bridge in 1975. Nottinghamshire, then under the management of Jack Bond, had switched their attentions to him from his fellow-countryman Eddie Barlow. Rice stepped into the shoes that had not too long back been worn by Garry Sobers. He started his stint with 1,155 runs and 53 wickets. With every passing season, his bat grew more prolific and the balls sharper. In the next season, he hit 246 against Sussex.
It actually worked wonders for Nottinghamshire when they lured Richard Hadlee as a probable successor for Rice. When the South African was reinstated in the team, they suddenly possessed all-round strength like never before — something few county teams could ever aspire to. With the ball, they rekindled the memories of Harold Larwood and Bill Voce. Yes, they could be almost as hostile when required. And they were seriously talented with the bat.
In an interview to me, Rice had explained how the two great all-rounders shared their responsibilities. “Rich [Hadlee] and I had to balance responsibilities. Richard would lead the bowling and I would help. I would in turn focus more on batting and Richard would help. As all-rounders, those were our roles in the side. Of course, there would be days when I would suddenly dominate with the ball and pick up 6 wickets. Just like we have [Jacques] Kallis now, he is a batsman who can bowl, but not a frontline bowler. For the Notts, I was more of a batsman than a bowler.”
The Nottinghamshire team had for years been quite content to end just a place or two from the bottom. In 1975 and 1976 they had finished 13th on the championship table. From 1977, riding on the brilliance of Rice and then Hadlee, there had been some improvement.
However, as captain, Rice hauled the team up by the bootstraps and turned them around. Initially his tactical manoeuvres were still under development, his previous leadership having been restricted to his club Bedford View. The pressures also added a dimension and weight he had never experienced before. “I am sometimes thinking of many other things when I am out in the middle batting,” he confessed at the end of his first full season as captain in 1980. But, the teammates imbibed his spirit and enthusiasm to the full, including the likes of Derek Randall.
Rice led by example. In 1980 he amassed 1448 runs at 53.62 and captured 39 wickets at 22.02. Nottinghamshire enjoyed the best season in more than half a century, finishing third on the table. Rice was named one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year.
It was a remarkable result, but not quite the summit Rice had been aiming for. By the next season his captaincy had matured further. The Notts dominated the summer and won the championship. Rice himself had another fabulous year, scoring 1,462 runs at 56.23 including 6 hundreds, and capturing 65 wickets at 19.20.
By this time Rice was also prolific for Transvaal in the South African domestic season. In 1979-80, Transvaal won both the Currie Cup and the Datsun Cup. Rice scored his first hundred in South Africa — 121 against Western Province. The very next match saw him rushing along to make up for all the century-less days. He hammered 110 against Natal, adding 283 with Graeme Pollock.
The best years
By the 1981-82 season, he was leading Transvaal as well. Nottinghamshire continued to flourish under him, and Transvaal became known as the Mean Machine. In 1984-85, they won all the domestic matches except one — only Eastern Province got away while 8 wickets down in the second innings, helped by three hours of rain. With Graeme Pollock, Jimmy Cook and Sylvester Clarke, it was a fantastic outfit.
Rice also led South Africa in their periodic tussles against the rebel teams that visited them during the eighties. A band of renegade West Indians arrived in 1983-84, and a strong Australian team in 1985-86. Every opportunity of international exposure was seized with voracious hunger of the great talent starved of top-class cricket.
By the mid-80, Rice was a towering figure on the county grounds, and recognised as someone who could be classed in the same elite group of all-rounders as the fantastic four of Ian Botham, Imran Khan, Kapil Dev and Richard Hadlee. In the mid-80s, four separate single-wicket tournaments were played featuring the five, in which each man batted against the other four. Rice won three of these competitions, and Imran the other.
Rice played his last county season in 1987, as usual enjoying his time with bat and ball. He managed 1,103 runs at 45.95 and captured 28 wickets at 28.57. He signed off by leading Nottinghamshire to the title for the second time.
They came within a hair-breadth of a third time. In 1984, the team was a stroke away from the championship. They needed four to win, to get the points that would have given them the top spot. Rice himself had led the way, scoring 98 impeccable runs in the final innings. Off the penultimate ball, Mike Bore had slogged Brian Booth. It had looked like the winning six, but the travelling ball had been caught just inside the fence.
Clive Rice in English summers: Phenomenal in County Cricket
International renown at long last — but brief
Rice continued to lead Transvaal, and they won the Currie Cup again in 1986-87 and 1987-88. It was during the late eighties that a new ray of hope dawned on the approaching evening of his superb career.
Signs and symptoms hinted at the end of the long isolation. Ali Bacher had the foresight to form a single colour-independent body to oversee all cricket in South Africa. And the good doctor joined Steve Tshwete, the head of the sports desk of the African National Congress, to visit London and negotiate the cause of South African cricket.
The country was readmitted into the international fold. The long 21-year wait had ended. And Rice, at 42, had kept playing the game, with perhaps the faint hope that somehow he would be able to set foot in the international arena. He was appointed captain.
“Yes, we were optimistic that things would be sorted out and we would get the opportunity to play Test cricket soon. That optimism carried us along right through to 1991 when we returned to play against India. By then I was 42,” Rice recalls.
He led the team to India as the South Africans emerged on the Eden Gardens as the Proteans, to resume their interrupted journey. Rice arrived in the country, apprehensive about possible protests against the tour. What he saw was beyond his wildest dreams. From the airport to the hotel, streets were lined with people who had turned up to welcome the touring team. “I don’t think even Obama would get that reception,” he reflects.
The atmosphere was unbelievable in the steaming cauldron of Eden Gardens with nearly hundred thousand fans assembled for the historic match. The noise was unbelievable. Rice walked on to the field, at the age of 42, still looking every bit the great cricketer he had been. Once the ever present Avis cap was taken off, the crown announced itself as bare. But, then, he had always had a receding hairline, and the cap was almost perennially attached to his head.
South Africa were back with a bang. Allan Donald made the world sit up and take notice as he produced pace of white lightning on that sluggish Eden wicket. Sachin Tendulkar and Pravin Amre won the match for India, but not before a tense struggle. And after losing the first two matches, the Proteans chased down a steep target at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, New Delhi, with quite a bit to spare. Rice himself did not have the best series, but did lead South Africa back to the top league in flying colours.
There was satisfaction in his voice, as also the echo of happy dreams. Yes, he was disappointed to have been away from all this for so long, he told reporters. His career would perhaps be limited to a few Tests, he observed. The words hinted at his continuing dream to play Tests, a burning desire kept alive through the many years of cold isolation. He had also painstakingly prepared the plans of South Africa’s World Cup campaign. Having come thus far, he was raring to sprint down the home stretch.
And then he was informed that he would not be going to Australia for the 1992 World Cup. “That was a real kick in the teeth,” he confessed. “There was a whole political issue around it. I had led Transvaal in the eighties and the team was known as Transvaal Mean Machine… It was a fantastic team (with Graeme Pollock, Jimmy Cook and Sylvester Clarke). And accordingly it bred some resentment, which came up after the 1991 tour. At the Board level there were a lot of issues and I became a scapegoat.”
One of the greatest cricketers of his era had to bid adieu with a career of three meagre One-Day Internationals, with figures that are too imprecise indicators of his stature to merit mention in these pages. Rice covered the World Cup for Channel 9, but that was scant consolation.
Brushes with controversy
Rice played two more seasons, this time for Natal, before calling it a day at the age of 44. His final figures read 26,331 runs at 40.95 with 48 hundreds, along with 930 wickets at 22.49. Look at them anyway, the numbers continue to boggle the mind.
He later coached Nottinghamshire, and was one of the leading figures who influenced Kevin Pietersen to play for England. He also played a major role in the development of Shaun Pollock, Jonty Rhodes and Lance Klusener into international cricketers.
For all his runs and wickets, trophies and protégés, Rice could have been remembered for the silliest of reasons. It was an offer by Olympic Sportsway, asking him to pose for their cricketing equipment with nothing on but the bat held in a strategic position. “South Africa was a hell of a conservative place. This created an unbelievable stir. The ad got banned. Then when I asked what exactly they were banning, it got unbanned. There was a huge coverage. Some cricket officials in Transvaal said I would never captain the side because I was too controversial. People still remember me for doing that ad rather than for the runs I scored. As a result the whole Olympic Sports range sold out in six weeks.”
But, with time, the curious issue has faded into its appropriate place in the distant background. Yet, Rice has not really been squeamish about other controversies. He has been vocal about the trend of ‘reverse apartheid’ which he sees as detrimental to cricket in South Africa. “These politicians today; they never earned their respect in cricket. People don’t respect them anyway. They come in with their own political agenda. That is why the likes of Pietersen and [Jonathan] Trott go overseas and refuse to put up with this nonsense. In the end, the cricket team suffers,” he laments.
Rice was also one of the loudest voices to proclaim that both Bob Woolmer and Hansie Cronje were murdered. “I have no doubt whatsoever. Around the time of Woolmer’s death, there were occasions when the entire Pakistan team were all out caught. All dismissals in an innings caught. What are the odds? It has happened very rarely in the history of the game. There were statements made after Bob’s death. First we heard that the trachea had been damaged. Then we were told of a heart attack. How does a doctor say trachea damage first and then heart attack? It would have been disgraceful for image of the World Cup organisers if a murder was revealed. We in South Africa made a mistake. We should have performed an autopsy on his body when it arrived in the country. In Cronje’s case, the automated take-off and landing signals were switched off at the airports. I play golf with one of the judges, and got the final case report from him. I sent the report to a friend of mine who deals with air-crashes in his official capacity. He told me how the signals had been switched off. In that respect, the case report was very fishy indeed,” he told the author in an earlier interview.
Associated with a street-lighting company and involved in his wife Susan’s Sports and Bush safari set up, Rice remains full of life at 64. He tees off with zest and is passionate about racing cars.
He had a brain tumour removed in 1998 and then received radiation treatment for a grade two tumour in his thigh. Yet, his infectious enthusiasm for life continues to overflow. His latest Facebook update read: “I do not need to bat or bowl again so it just needs to be strong enough to play golf, race cars and do sensible things. I am fine and once the radiation has been completed in September I will be back to normal with the cancer nailed.”
Twenty-one years spent in sustaining passion, keeping the glow of an incredible career aflame through all the years of dark despair and disappointment. Perhaps that prepares one to overcome every unexpected challenge and to continue to revel in the joy of life.
Clive Rice passed away on 28 July 2015