Durban: A stalwart of non-racial cricket in South Africa and former chief of the country’s new cricket board Krish Mackerdhuj has died following a brief illness. He was 64.

A family member said Mackerdhuj was admitted to hospital last week and died early last morning of heart failure.

Mackerdhuj, who was president of the erstwhile South African Cricket Board of Control at the time of the struggles for equality in sport and politics, became the president of the South African Cricket Union in the early 1990s.

After serving a four-year term, he was appointed by former president Nelson Mandela to serve as ambassador to Japan.

He completed his term early this year and returned to the country after firmly establishing strong trade and economic ties between the two countries. He was recently asked to take up the post of ambassador to Uzbekistan but was unable to do so because of illness.