Roebuck no more

Peter Roebuck, the respected cricket commentator and columnist, has died aged 55 in South Africa on Saturday night.
South African police have released a statement confirming that Roebuck took his own life.
"This office can confirm that an incident occurred last night at about 21.15 at a hotel in Claremont where a 55-year-old British national who worked as an Australian commentator committed suicide," the statement said. "The circumstances surrounding this incident is being conducted. An inquest docket has been opened for investigation."
Roebuck was in South Africa covering Australia's ongoing Test tour, including as a radio commentator for the ABC. He was spoken to by local police on his return to the Southern Sun Hotel Newlands on Saturday night after he had been out to dinner.
A statement issued by the hotel said "an incident that occurred at Southern Sun Newlands" was currently under full police investigation. No further details were given.
In addition to his work in print and radio, Roebuck was also a widely read columnist for ESPNcricinfo, contributing his views in both written and audio form. His last column had expressed cautious optimism about the progress of the Australian team.
Roebuck was born in Oxford on March 6, 1956, the son of two schoolteachers and one of six children. He was an accomplished batsman for Somerset and went on to captain the county to success in the 1980s. He also led an England team against Netherlands.
In 335 first-class matches, Roebuck made 17,558 runs at 37.27, with 33 centuries. He was one of Wisden's cricketers of the year in 1988. His playing career was overshadowed to some degree by a drawn-out feud with other Somerset players, which led to the removal of Joel Garner and Viv Richards, and the exit of Ian Botham.
As Roebuck's cricket developed, so did his writing. It Never Rains, his journal of the 1983 season, established him as one of cricket's most insightful voices, and he would go on to write numerous other books, including an account of England's Ashes success in Australia in 1986-87.
Australia would play a growing part in Roebuck's life; he spent summers there, teaching and playing cricket, then graduating to writing and commentating. After his first-class playing career ended in 1991, Roebuck shared his time between Australia and South Africa, living in Sydney and Pietermaritzburg.
Roebuck's columns were fiercely independent and artfully written, often expressing the contrarian view but at other times articulating the thoughts of many, though in words they could not have found.
He was outspoken on numerous topics, not least the degeneration of Zimbabwe cricket, and was also a frequent questioner of the game's administrators and money-men. He wrote critically of the influence of betting, both legal and illegal, within the game, and warned against the proliferation of cricket without meaning or context.
On radio Roebuck served as the international counterpoint to the strong Australian voices to be found in the ABC box. As a man, Roebuck could be prickly, but was always prepared to share his views on the game and on life. In his autobiography, Sometimes I Forgot To Laugh, Roebuck's father described him. "In orthodox spheres," he said, "Peter might be regarded as odd, whereas he is merely obscure and oblique. He is an unconventional loner, with an independent outlook on life, an irreverent sense of humour and sometimes a withering tongue."