Cape Town – Ivan Wingreen, a Western Province opening batsman in the 1980s, has died after an illness in Australia.
The Cape Town-born 52-year old had lived there for many years, and been suffering more recently from a brain tumour.
Wingreen played all of his 22 first-class matches, between 1983 and 1987, for Western Province B in the strong former Castle Bowl competition, scoring 1,163 runs at an average of just under 30 and including a century and six fifties.
But he also played two limited-overs matches for the senior WP side in 1984/85, making his debut and scoring 31 against Natal at Kingsmead – their attack included West Indians Hartley Alleyne and Collis King plus Paddy Clift and Kenny Cooper – in the Benson & Hedges night series.
He also played against Northern Transvaal in a semi-final of the Nissan Shield at Berea Park.
Wingreen was a popular, heavy-scoring stalwart of the Techs-Mutual club in the WP Premier League, and active in Maccabi cricket in both South Africa and Australia – his domestic playing era included a generous presence of highly-regarded Jewish players like Mandy Yachad, Lawrence Seeff, Terence Lazard and Evan Gordon.
He leaves his wife Lee and two daughters, Alexandra and Eliza.
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