We’ll never know how good Barry Richards could have been on the international stage, but he remains one of South Africa’s all-time greats.

Richards (70) only played four Tests before South Africa’s sporting isolation brought a premature end to his international career. All four Tests were played in 1969/70 against Australia.

Known as an aggressive stroke maker, Richards went on to play for Hampshire, Natal and South Australia, and in Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket.

He scored 508 runs in his four Tests at an average of 72.57 with two hundreds and two fifties. His Test career will be most remembered for the game in Durban where he and Graeme Pollock smashed Australia to all parts of Kingsmead as South Africa totalled 622 to win by an innings and 129 runs.

Pollock finished on 274, a record high score by a South African at the time, while Richards made 140.

Richards was a tremendous talent who scored nine hundreds before lunch and 1 000 runs in a season 15 times. He played 339 first-class matches scoring 28 358 runs at an average of 54.74.

Picture: Getty Images