By Telford Vice

DURBAN, South Africa (Reuters) - International Cricket Council (ICC) president Percy Sonn, who died on Sunday, will be remembered as an able administrator and a firebrand who sometimes spoke his mind too freely for his own good.

When former South African captain Hansie Cronje was banned for life for his involvement in matchfixing in 2000, Sonn said Cronje "won't even be allowed to play beach cricket".

Sonn's comment was a key factor in Cronje's decision to fight his ban in court. Cronje, who died in a plane crash in 2002, lost his case.

Sonn, 57, was a major figure in the racial unification of South African cricket and served as president of the United Cricket Board (UCB) from 2000 to 2003.

In January, 2002, he refused to approve the South African team that was selected for the second test against Australia at Sydney because Jacques Rudolph, who is white, had been chosen ahead of the black Justin Ontong. Ontong was subsequently included in the team at Rudolph's expense.

Sonn was widely criticised for his action, but he was correct in terms of UCB policy, which stipulated that preference should be given to blacks when players of different race but similar ability competed for a place in the national team.

Controversy dogged Sonn, not least because of his outspokenness and his excessive drinking. He also admitted deliberately throwing some of his deliveries during a modest playing career.

"I definitely chucked a few but the umpires didn't pick it up and there were no TV replays, on matting wickets, an off-spin chuck got a lot of wickets," Sonn said.

An observer of an incident during a 2003 World Cup match in Paarl was quoted in a South African newspaper as saying that Sonn "almost fell out of his trousers" due to drunkenness.

Sonn's tenure as ICC president will, unfairly or not, be marked most prominently by former test umpire Darrell Hair's fall from grace in August, 2006 and former Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer's death during the 2007 World Cup.

Hair was at the centre of a ball-tampering controversy involving Pakistan during their tour to England, which resulted in the first forfeited test.

Woolmer died in his hotel room in Jamaica after Pakistan had suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Ireland on March 17.

Percival Henry Frederick Sonn, one of seven brothers, was born in Cape Town on September 25, 1949. He read law at the University of the Western Cape, and qualified as a lawyer in 1972.

Sonn became a senior counsel and was an acting judge. He served as South Africa's deputy director of public prosecutions, and was a legal advisor to the police.

He formed and headed the Directorate of Special Operations in South Africa, a crack investigative police unit modelled on the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States.

Sonn leaves a wife, Sandra, a daughter and two sons.

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