Renowned cricket writer Peter Roebuck was found dead at his hotel in South Africa where he was covering Australia’s Test series with the Proteas, his employers said on Sunday.
British-born Roebuck, 55, studied law at Cambridge and played 335 first-class matches before making a career writing about the sport, quickly establishing an avid following with his forthright, intelligent prose.
He regularly commentated for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and wrote for the nation’s Fairfax newspapers, and was covering the South African Test when he was found dead in a Newlands hotel, according to the media firms.
The circumstances of his death were not immediately clear, but the Sydney Morning Herald said he had reportedly been “spoken to by police earlier in the day”.
“Peter was a wonderful writer who was the bard of summer for cricket-loving Australians,” said Ian Fuge, the Herald’s sport managing editor.
“He was also an extraordinary bloke who will be sorely missed.”
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Craig Norenbergs, head of the ABC’s Grandstand sports programme, described Roebuck’s death as “incredibly sad news.”
“He was an integral part of the Grandstand commentary team, apart from being a magnificent print journalist,” Norenbergs said.
“For us he could describe a game of cricket in such a way that even if you didn’t like the game, you liked the way that he went about his business.”