ICC PRESIDENT CRITICALLY ILL

Percy Sonn, the president of the ICC, is critically ill in an intensive care unit in Cape Town, according to Cricket South Africa.

His PA, George Hector, told Cricinfo that Sonn had suffered complications after being admitted to the Durbanville clinic in Cape Town on Monday to undergo a minor colon operation. The appointment, Hector added, had been scheduled several months prior to the recent World Cup in the Caribbean.

Sonn, 57, the former president of the United Cricket Board of South Africa (UCB), succeeded Ehsan Mani at the helm of the ICC in June 2006, and immediately announced his intentions to be a "hands-off" president. This declaration was borne out by his low profile during the World Cup; after delivering his speech at the opening ceremony in Jamaica, he returned to South Africa for several weeks of the 47-day tournament, although that decision may have been attributable to his ill-health.

"This news is extremely upsetting for everyone who knows Percy," Brian Murgatroyd, the ICC's spokesman, told Cricinfo. "Everyone was with him at the World Cup, where he was his usual jolly self, and so to hear this less than a month later is very troubling.

"Percy has given virtually his whole life to cricket," added Murgatroyd. "He started out in administration at his local club in Belville [in Cape Town] because he was virtually the only person at the club who could read and write. He played a major part in the integration of the South African game after apartheid, and was president of the UCB throughout a tumultuous decade. All our thoughts are with his family and wife Sandra at this difficult time."

Sonn's career in cricket administration has been as controversial as it has been long. In January 2002, as president of the UCB, he caused a public rumpus by overruling the selection of Jacques Rudolph for the New Year Test against Australia, opting instead for Rudolph's black room-mate, Justin Ontong. But his most infamous behaviour came at Paarl during the 2003 World Cup, when he drank himself into such a state of inebriation during Holland's match against India that he was reported to have "almost fallen out of his trousers".

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