Modern cricket robbed of its Clive van Rynevelds

Young white men were prepared for careers in the real world; not sport

● Can you spot any rugby internationals among South Africa’s current cricketers? Oxford or Cambridge blues? MandelaRhodes scholars? Lawyers? How about future human rights campaigners? Or members of parliament?

None of the above is the correct answer, although there are honourable quasi-exceptions in Mark Boucher putting the scourge of rhino poaching in the headlines and Dale Steyn highlighting the difficulties penguins face, because of climate change, to find enough food.

But Boucher has retired and Steyn, who turns 35 in June, can’t have much time left at the top.

Maybe this is just a grumpy columnist talking, but it’s hard to know whether any of the younger generation are significantly interested in, aside from playing cricket, anything besides landing big T20 deals, fathering children, and religion. No, golf doesn’t count.

Clive van Ryneveld was interested in exponentially more. He went to Oxford as what was then called a Rhodes scholar, won his blue for cricket and rugby, played the latter for England in four tests, became a lawyer, and was elected a United Party MP in 1957. The UP proved too insipid in opposition to apartheid for Van Ryneveld, so in 1959 he helped Helen Suzman form the Progressive Party.

He was a member of parliament when he played the last of his 19 tests, at St George’s Park in March 1958, when he captained South Africa against Australia.

Then he got on with helping Basil D’Oliveira and other black players draft the contracts that would give them a future as players in England.

You have to wonder what his Twitter account might have looked like had social media been around when he was a young man: “Aussies in. Apartheid out.”

You don’t have to wonder too hard about what’s changed in 60 years to make people like Van Ryneveld relics of a past at once less and more livable.

The cricket industry was far smaller then, so after their playing years cricketers who wanted to stay in the game had few options beyond writing, umpiring or coaching. And even those sparse avenues weren’t plentiful.

But, had Van Ryneveld the choice of the many fields available to modern former cricketers — television commentating, elite umpiring, high level administration, selling players as an agent, coaching in every which sense of every which team in every which league — would he still have committed himself to trying to make the world a better place?

We cannot know. Just as we can’t know whether people as obviously thoughtful and intelligent as Faf du Plessis and Hashim Amla wouldn’t have done a Van Ryneveld if they didn’t have all that money in the bank and all those options. Who knows — they might yet.

And it bears pointing out that, when Van Ryneveld was growing up, young white men were prepared for careers in the real world; not in sport.

But there can be no doubting that the slick professionalism of cricket nowadays robs the world of talent that could be put to better use in spheres beyond sport.

Tich Smith, a rugby and cricket star in KwaZulu-Natal in the 1980s, lost almost everything to alcohol abuse, found his idea of a god, and has used his second innings to establish a rural village where vulnerable children can find safety and, perchance, peace.

Sadly his ilk are rare. Those are this columnist’s weasel words for the fact that he can’t think of anyone else who has done something similar.

Except Van Ryneveld. I interviewed him once, about something that’s long gone from my memory, at the behest of an editor who seemed interested in nothing besides the bloody awful game of golf.

But for Van Ryneveld he made an exception, and the reverence and enthusiasm with which he gave me his telephone number has remained with me for 20 years and more.

I still have it, but I won’t be using it again. Clive Berrange van Ryneveld died on Monday, aged 89.

Hamba kahle, comrade.