Tributes pour in for Roebuck

Former Australian spinner and ABC Grandstand commentator Kerry O'Keeffe has a heart-warming tribute for Peter Roebuck, who died in South Africa on Saturday. O'Keeffe recalls Roebuck's love and knowledge of the game, and shares some lovely anecdotes about his radio colleague for 11 years.

In the Sydney Morning Herald, Greg Baum tries to piece together the parts of a man whom not very many new.

He was complex, intense, taut, edgy, opinionated, a little manic, mostly cheerful, sometimes broody. He was a contrarian, not for the sake of it, but because he always had another view. He spoke quickly, in a clipped tone, needing to get the thoughts out so that more could follow; his broadcast voice was his street voice. He did not do small talk, ever.

In the same paper, Malcolm Knox also attempts to explain the man beyond the writer.

There was a carapace of Roebuckness that not even his best friends could get through. It was the one remnant of his English upbringing that he couldn't shake off. He was instinctively generous - through counsel or guidance or financial aid, or more formally, through friends in coaching or the LBW Trust, a global charity for which Roebuck was a driving force. When he knew he was needed, generosity was his reflex. He helped more than he knew. Yet he was embarrassed by emotions and a hard man to convince of his own good deeds. He made us laugh very much more often than we could make him laugh.

In his blog on cricketnext.com, Gaurav Kalra regrets that he did not become better friends with the man he calls “keeper of cricket's morality”

Peter viewed cricket from the prism of a larger world-view. He argued vociferously for Zimbabwe's exclusion from the world game, pointing repeatedly at the seedy corruption among its administrators. He lawyered with passion for the continued presence of minnows in the World Cup, despite their abject performance in the sub-continent.

Also in the Sydney Morning Herald, Patrick Smithers compiles a selection of vignettes from a memorable writing career.

Read our collection of tributes here.