He was an aggressive batsman known for his powerful hitting. He has scored over 21000 runs. He bowled with an awkward, wrong footed action and generated a lot of pace and bounce. He has taken over 1400 wickets. Unfortunately, all these feats by the seriously talented Mike Procter were restricted to first class cricket, thanks to the ban on South African cricket in the 1970s and 80s.

Procter's best was reserved for Gloucestershire, where he played as an overseas player for 13 years with great success. The county, which was struggling in 1969, went to second place as Procter took over 100 wickets. When Procter was in form with the bat, he made it count by scoring hundreds regularly and at will, as shown by his record 6 consecutive centuries in first class cricket for Rhodesia in 1970, and 4 first class tons for Gloucestershire in 1971. He also achieved the rare feat of taking 2 hat tricks in as many games in 1979, again for Gloucestershire. He led the side between 1977 and 1981, and led the team to the Benson & Hedges cup in 1977. His popularity was evident from the nickname for his county - Proctershire.

Procter did get the chance to play Test cricket too; he played 7 Tests, all against Australia. In those 7 matches, he showcased to the world how talented he was. With the ball, he took 41 wickets at an average of just 15. With the bat, he made useful contributions and South Africa defeated Australia in two successive series.

After his playing days, Procter became a match referee, a position where controversy followed him. He was the referee at the Oval in 2006 when Pakistan forfeited the Test after the umpires penalised them for ball tampering. In 2008, he was the referee at Sydney and banned Indian off spinner Harbhajan Singh for 3 matches on charges of racism (a decision which was overturned later). He stepped down from the post in 2008 and became South Africa's convener of selectors.

By Karthik Lakshmanan