Clive van Ryneveld, lawyer, MP and outstanding sportsman 1928-2018
Took field for SA and England, and against apartheid
● Clive van Ryneveld, who has died at the age of 89, captained the Springbok cricket team and played rugby for England. He was also a member of parliament and a lawyer.
In 1959 he helped found the Progressive Party. In 1962 he defended five members of the PAC’s military wing, Poqo, who were accused of leading a march on a police station in Paarl. Police opened fire and in an ensuing riot two white people were killed.
Two of the defendants were acquitted and three sentenced to death. Shortly before being hanged, one of them sent him a letter thanking him for doing his best and for treating them with courtesy.
In 1957 Van Ryneveld was elected to parliament as the United Party’s candidate in East London North. He described himself as “a very amateur politician”.
He became disillusioned with the UP’s half-hearted opposition to apartheid, and in 1959 joined 11 MPs who left the party to start the Progressive Party.
In the 1961 election all of them except Helen Suzman lost their seats.
Van Ryneveld was born in Cape Town on March 19 1928, and educated at Bishops. His father, also Clive, was a Springbok rugby player, and his maternal uncle, Jimmy Blanckenberg, was a Springbok cricketer.
Van Ryneveld captained the South African Schools XI in 1945. While still at school he made his debut for Western Province, scoring 90 not-out against the then Rhodesia.
In 1947 he won a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University. His brother Tony had won it the year before.
He read law but paid more attention to rugby and cricket and won his Blues for both in his first year.
At a packed Twickenham he scored a legendary try to seal Oxford’s 14-8 victory over Cambridge.
In the summer of 1949 he captained the Oxford cricket side, which won seven matches before being thumped by Cambridge at Lord’s.
That same year he was chosen to play centre for England in all four Five Nations tests, against Wales, Ireland, Scotland and France.
He was described as running with an “elusive dash, swerve and speed that left defences floundering”. He was regarded as one of the best centres of the postwar years.
London’s Evening Standard called him “one of the outstanding all-round amateur athletes of the day ”.
Back in South Africa, his rugby career was terminated by a brutally hard tackle while he was playing for Villagers against Stellenbosch University; it dislocated his hip.
However, he was picked for Dudley Nourse’s Springbok cricket side, which toured England in 1951. This was the start of a career in which he captained South Africa in two four-test series, against Australia and England. He played in 19 tests, in which he scored 724 runs and took 17 wickets.
Tall and loose-limbed, Van Ryneveld used his long reach to drive superbly, especially against slow bowling.
His leg breaks and googlies were by his own admission “a bit erratic”, but occasionally unplayable, while his quick reflexes and natural athleticism made him the Jonty Rhodes of his day in the field.
He had a sharp sense of fair play, which didn’t always go down well with home supporters or members of his team.
In a critical moment during a test against Australia at Durban in 1958, he refused to appeal after running out their best batsman, Neil Harvey.
Harvey was walking back to his crease after a South African fielder deceived him into believing that he had hit a four before hurling the ball at Van Ryneveld who was at the stumps.
Van Ryneveld’s sporting gesture probably cost South Africa the match.
In the final test of that series
Australia needed only 68 to win and were being bombarded with vicious bouncers by South Africa’s hostile fast bowlers Neil Adcock and Peter Heine.
Van Ryneveld had instructed them to bowl no more than one bouncer per eight-ball over, and took them off. They were furious.
He would have played in more than 19 tests but his work as an advocate didn’t allow him the time.
He left the Bar in 1967 to join the South African branch of Hill Samuel Merchant Bank.
Van Ryneveld opposed the sports boycott because he felt it wasn’t fair to penalise test players, most of whom, he said, were as opposed to apartheid as he was.
He used his legal skills to help black players get contracts to play county cricket in England, among them Basil D’Oliveira, who went on to play for England.
Van Ryneveld was self-deprecating, reserved and modest about his achievements.
He is survived by his wife, Verity, and three children.
He used his legal skills to help black players get contracts to play county cricket in England