Cape Town, Nov.13 (ANI): Police in Cape Town, South Africa, are suspecting that iconic cricket writer Peter Roebuck could have committed suicide hours shortly after some officers talked to him in his room on the sixth floor of the hotel where he was staying, but have not issued a confirmation as yet.
They said that they are still piecing the evidence available to determine the actual of death. A final report would emerge after a post mortem of Roebuck's body is completed, they added.
Meanwhile, Sports24 has quoted Cricket Australia chief James Sutherland as expressing shock at the death of Roebuck, who he described as a "familiar face" to the Australian cricket team, who had been with the players "only hours before his sudden death".
"He spoke his mind frankly and while one didn't necessarily always have to agree, you always respected what he had to say," he added.
Craig Norenbergs, head of the ABC's Grandstand sports programme, said it was "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."
Roebuck, a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1988, captained English county side Somerset in the 1980s and turned out regularly for Devon after retiring from top-level cricket in 1991.
He penned several books on the sport and was a sometimes polarising figure known for his strong views and admired as one of cricket's most articulate and incisive minds.
Roebuck's father said his son was seen as "odd" in orthodox spheres.
"He is an unconventional loner with an independent outlook on life, an irreverent sense of humour and sometimes a withering tongue," the elder Roebuck said in his son's 2005 autobiography "Sometimes I Forgot to Laugh".
In his diary of a season, "It Never Rains", Roebuck reflected on how strange it was "that cricket attracts so many insecure men."
Roebuck filed a column published just hours before news of his death broke, urging Australia to hold their nerve following the "dumbfounding" events in the first Test against South Africa in which the visitors were shot out for just 47 in their second innings. (ANI)
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