A automobile accident near Riversdale on Tuesday claimed the lives of four people, including former South African umpire Rudi Koertzen.
After a weekend of golf, 73-year-old Koertzen was travelling from Cape Town to Despatch in the Eastern Cape to return home when the awful event occurred. According to Rudi Koertzen Jr., his father passed away during the collision.
Koertzen Jr. spoke to South African station Algoa FM News and said, "He went on a golf tournament with some of his pals, and they were meant to return back on Monday, but it seems they decided to play another round of golf."
At the time of his retirement in 2010, Koertzen had officiated 331 international games, a record that has since been surpassed by Pakistan's Aleem Dar. Koertzen was one of only three umpires to stand in more than 100 Test matches, along with Dar and Steve Bucknor of the West Indies.
Dar was quoted by ESPNcricinfo as stating, "It is a very great loss first and foremost for his family and then for South Africa and cricket."
"I participated in numerous games with him. He was not just a superb umpire but a great teammate as well, always willing to work with teammates on and off the field. Because of who he was, players respected him as well " he added
Marais Erasmus, a fellow South African umpire, said: "Rudi had such a resilient personality, both psychologically and physically. He made it possible for South African umpires to compete on a global scale. made all of us think it's doable. an actual legend. He taught me a lot as a young umpire."
His first match was the second ODI in Gqeberha (then Port Elizabeth) during India's 1992–93 tour of South Africa, which served as Koertzen's debut international series. He later rose to prominence as one of the best and most respected umpires in the world and received accolades in September 1999 for turning down a bribe to rig a West Indies vs. India match in Singapore.
The 2007 World Cup final, nevertheless, was only a minor blip in Koertzen's career. He served as the third umpire during that game in Barbados, where the officials received flak for the chaotic way the game ended and were punished by the ICC.
Koertzen openly discussed the 2007 World Cup final and other well-known "errors" he had committed in his career in Slow Death: Memoirs of a Cricket Umpire, the book he co-wrote after retiring from international play in 2010.
He last participated in a representative game in an IPL game in Bengaluru in 2011 between Royal Challenger Bangalore and Chennai Super Kings.
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