Ron Draper used to play the role of a top-order batsman and an occasional wicketkeeper. He featured in two Test matches for South Africa against Australia in 1950
Representational Image (Pic: File Pic)
Former South Africa cricketer Ron Draper died in Gqeberha. Draper was the oldest living Test cricketer and has passed away at the age of 98 years and 63 days.
Ron Draper used to play the role of a top-order batsman and an occasional wicketkeeper. He featured in two Test matches for South Africa against Australia in 1950.
One of his opponents, Neil Harvey has now become the oldest living Test cricketer at the age of 96. Both the previous oldest Test cricketers were South Africans, Norman Gordon, who died aged 103 in 2016, and John Watkins, who was 98 when he died in 2021.
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Ron Draper, who was born on December 24, 1926, registered a century on his first-class debut for Eastern Province against Orange Free State on his 19th birthday.
After playing a knock of 86 runs for the province against Australia in 1949/50, Ron Draper got selected for the last two Test matches against the tourists. He managed to garner just 25 runs across three innings.
By contrast, Harvey, then aged 21 and in the early stages of a distinguished Test career, made centuries in both matches. Draper continued to play first-class cricket until 1959/60 and finished with a respectable average of 41.64.
He scored a century before lunch on the first day of his first two matches of the 1952/53 season. In the second match, against Border, he added another hundred in the second innings to become the first player to score two centuries in a match in South Africa's long-established Currie Cup competition.
Draper died in a retirement home in Gqeberha on Tuesday. His death was confirmed by his son-in-law, Neil Thomson, on Friday.
(With AFP Inputs)
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