Clive van Ryneveld

Clive Berrangè van Ryneveld (19 March 1928 – 29 January 2018) was a South African cricketer who played in 19 Test matches between 1951 and 1958.[1] He was the son of Reginald Clive Berrangè van Ryneveld (b. 7 July 1891, d. 1969) and Maria Alfreda Blanckenberg (b.1900, d.1994). Before his death in 2018, he was the oldest living South African cricket captain.

Clive van Ryneveld

Parliamentarians of the Progressive Party in 1960. Clive van Ryneveld is in the back row, second from the left.
Personal information
Born	(1928-03-19)19 March 1928 Cape Town, Union of South Africa
Died	29 January 2018(2018-01-29) (aged 89) Cape Town, South Africa
Batting	Right-handed
Bowling	Legbreak googly
Relations	Anthony van Ryneveld (brother) Jimmy Blanckenberg (uncle)
International information
National side	South Africa
Test debut	7 June 1951 v England
Last Test	28 February 1958 v Australia
Career statistics
Competition Test First-class Matches 19 101 Runs scored 724 4,803 Batting average 26.81 30.20 100s/50s 0/3 4/29 Top score 83 150 Balls bowled 1,554 13,329 Wickets 17 206 Bowling average 39.47 30.24 5 wickets in innings 0 9 10 wickets in match 0 0 Best bowling 4/67 8/48 Catches/stumpings 14/– 71/–
Source: Cricinfo, 8 August 2021

Van Ryneveld was also an international rugby union player. He represented Oxford University RFC in The Varsity Match in 1947, 1948 and 1949 and won four caps as a centre for the England national rugby union team, playing in all four matches of the 1949 Five Nations Championship. He scored three tries for England; one against Ireland and two against Scotland. He never represented South Africa at rugby union.

According to an obituary by Sport24 he "was one of South Africa’s greatest all-round sportsmen who represented and captained South Africa at cricket and represented England at rugby during his time as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University (where his older brother Anthony was also a Rhodes Scholar), but he will be remembered equally for the role he played in trying to create a just society for all in South Africa".[2]

EW Swanton, the journalist and broadcaster, described him as “just about the best centre three quarter of my time in English football . . . he had speed, balance, jink and body swerve, lovely hands, a remarkably cool brain; and though comparatively light was indomitable in defence.”[3]

Van Ryneveld had a brief career in South African politics. In 1957 he was elected to Parliament as a member of the United Party, then the main opposition to the governing National Party which had introduced apartheid to South Africa. Two years later, in 1959, Van Ryneveld and eleven other MPs broke from the United Party to form the Progressive Party, which adopted a much more aggressive opposition to apartheid. The party's platform was ahead of its time, and in the 1961 general election all of the Progressive MPs except one, Helen Suzman, lost their seats.

Thereafter Van Ryneveld practised law. In his last years he lived in Cape Town with his wife, Verity Anne Hunter (b.25 September 1931). Their three children, Mark, Philip and Tessa, live in South Africa.

He published 20th Century All-rounder: Reminiscences and Reflections of Clive van Ryneveld in 2011.[4]