Percival Henry Frederick Sonn (25 September 1949 - 27 May 2007) was a South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

n lawyer and cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

 administrator. Sonn became the sixth president of the International Cricket Council

International Cricket Council

The International Cricket Council is the international governing body of cricket. It was founded as the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1909 by representatives from England, Australia and South Africa, renamed the International Cricket Conference in 1965, and took up its current name in 1989.The...

, the most senior role at cricket's world governing body, in July 2006. He was the first ICC president from Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

, serving until his early death.

Early life

Sonn was born in Oudtshoorn, near Cape Town

Cape Town

Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

 in South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

, one of seven brothers. He was educated at Belgravia Senior Secondary School, and read law at the University of the Western Cape

University of the Western Cape

The University of the Western Cape is a public university located in the Bellville suburb of Cape Town, South Africa. It was established in 1960 by the South African government as a university for Coloured people only...

. He became an attorney and advocate. He worked as a public prosecutor, and as a legal adviser to the South African Police Service

South African Police Service

The South African Police Service is the national police force of the Republic of South Africa. Its 1116 police stations in South Africa are divided according to the provincial borders, and a Provincial Commissioner is appointed in each province...

, becoming a senior counsel

Senior Counsel

The title of Senior Counsel or State Counsel is given to a senior barrister or advocate in some countries, typically equivalent to the title "Queen's Counsel" used in Commonwealth Realms...

, acting judge, and deputy director of public prosecutions. He was previously chief executive officer of a forensic investigation company.

He formed and headed the Directorate of Special Operations, responsible for investigating serious offences, including organised crime and drug trafficking.

Cricket career

Sonn played as an off-spinner for Maitland and Parow Cricket Union. He never played first-class cricket

First-class cricket

First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...

. He started out in cricket 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, moving on to become vice president of the non-white Western Province Cricket Board under Hassan Howa from 1974 to 1983, and then president from 1990 to 1992. He was also a vice-president of the racially segregated South African Cricket Board.

Sonn played a crucial role when South Africa returned to world cricket after the fall of apartheid in 1991, and was president of the United Cricket Board of South Africa for three years until 2003. He also served on the UCB's management committee.

He advocated the quota system, to increase the representation of non-white players in the South African cricket team

South African cricket team

The South African national cricket team represent South Africa in international cricket. They are administrated by Cricket South Africa.South Africa is a full member of the International Cricket Council, also known as ICC, with Test and One Day International, or ODI, status...

. He overruled the selectors in 2002, directing that (non-white) Justin Ontong

Justin Ontong

Justin Lee Ontong is a South African cricketer, who currently plays domestic cricket for the Cape Cobras. He has played two Tests, 26 One Day Internationals and two Twenty20 Internationals as an all-rounder.-Cricket career:...

 should play against Australia instead of (white) Jacques Rudolph

Jacques Rudolph

Jacobus Andries Rudolph , popularly known as Jacques Rudolph, is a South African Test and ODI cricketer currently playing in England with Yorkshire CCC and in South Africa with Titans.He had an unbeaten 222 in his debut Test inning...

.
Sonn became vice-president of the ICC in 2004, and was due to succeed Ehsan Mani

Ehsan Mani

Ehsan Mani is a former President of the International Cricket Council . He was born in Rawalpindi in Pakistan on March 23, 1945. He spent his early life in Pakistan playing for the Rawalpindi Club and Government College Lahore XI from 1959 to 1965 as a right-hand batsman and a left-arm fast medium...

 as the sixth president of the ICC in June 2005, but Mani's term of office was extended by one year, and Sonn finally took office in 2006. His two year term had been extended by an additional year in March 2007 when the ICC was unable to decide between David Morgan

David Morgan (cricket administrator)

Frederick David Morgan OBE is a cricket administrator who is the former president of the International Cricket Council. He had previously held positions as chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board and Glamorgan County Cricket Club....

 and Sharad Pawar

Sharad Pawar

Sharadchandra Govindrao Pawar , popularly known as SAHEB , is the president of the Nationalist Congress Party which he founded in 1999, after separating from the Indian National Congress...

 as his successor. In failing health, he took little part in the 2007 Cricket World Cup

2007 Cricket World Cup

The 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup was the ninth edition of the ICC Cricket World Cup tournament that took place in the West Indies from 13 March to 28 April 2007, using the sport's One Day International format...

 after delivering a speech at the opening ceremony in Jamaica

Jamaica

Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

.

On 22 May 2007 he was reported to be critically ill at Durbanville Medi-Clinic. He was admitted to intensive care after complications following minor colon

Colon (anatomy)

The colon is the last part of the digestive system in most vertebrates; it extracts water and salt from solid wastes before they are eliminated from the body, and is the site in which flora-aided fermentation of unabsorbed material occurs. Unlike the small intestine, the colon does not play a...

 surgery the previous day. The surgery had originally been scheduled for February. He died five days later. He was survived by his wife Sandra, and their two sons and one daughter.

Controversy

A controversial figure, particularly over his support for racial quotas in South African national teams, Sonn is felt by many to have been the wrong choice for leadership of the ICC, especially after he was forced to issue a public apology following allegations that he was drunk and disorderly at a 2003 Cricket World Cup game between India and Holland.

According to a report in the South African newspaper Beeld

Beeld

Beeld is an Afrikaans language daily newspaper that was launched on 16 September 1974. Beeld is distributed in five provinces of South Africa: Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, North West and KwaZulu-Natal. Die Beeld was an Afrikaans language Sunday newspaper in the late 1960s...

, racing driver Sarel van der Merwe

Sarel van der Merwe

Sarel Daniel van der Merwe is a South African former rally driver, who was a multiple South African Rally Drivers Champion. He is sometimes referred to as "Supervan"....

 witnessed how Sonn "literally fell out of his pants" and staggered about among the private suites at Boland Park

Boland Park

Boland Bank Park is a multi-purpose stadium in Paarl, South Africa. It is currently used mostly for cricket matches and hosted three matches during the 2003 Cricket World Cup. Boland cricket team and the Cape Cobras both stage home matches at the ground. The stadium has a capacity of 10,000...

, where the match was being played. The newspaper quoted van der Merwe as saying: "One could see that the chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board

England and Wales Cricket Board

The England and Wales Cricket Board is the governing body of cricket in England and Wales. It was created on 1 January 1997 combining the roles of the Test and County Cricket Board, the National Cricket Association and the Cricket Council...

, who was there as his guest, was most embarrassed."

Despite the incident, Sonn became an ICC vice-president in 2004 and succeeded to the presidency two years later.