Members of the Otago cricket community are mourning former long-serving player and administrator Ian Rutherford.
He died after his vehicle went off Moa Flat Rd and down a bank near Ettrick on Thursday morning.
Rutherford was 68.
The father of three had long been considered one of the unluckiest Otago cricketers not to earn national selection.
Rutherford, an opening batter, was a stalwart of the Otago team from 1974-75 to 1983-84, during which time he also played one season for Central Districts and had a year with Worcestershire in English county cricket.
He played 79 first-class games, scoring 3794 runs at an average of 27.10 with five centuries and 16 half-centuries, and 21 list A games, scoring 449 runs with one century.
He captained Otago in six first-class games.
Rutherford’s high score was a remarkable 222 — scored over 10 hours — to help Otago to a first-innings win over Central in the 1978-79 Shell Trophy final in New Plymouth.
That success helped ease the frustration of missing New Zealand selection for the tour in 1978 when many felt he should have been on the plane.
Rutherford — like brother Ken and nephew Hamish, both of whom played for New Zealand — was a member of the Albion club in Dunedin before he moved to Alexandra.
He scored nearly 1000 runs for Central Otago in districts cricket, spent five years as chief executive of the then-Central Otago Cricket Association, and coached at club and schoolboy level.
A couple of prominent former Otago cricketers lamented Rutherford’s loss on social media.
It was ‘‘incredibly sad news’’, Stu McCullum posted.
‘‘You will be sadly missed, my friend.’’
Evan Marshall said it was ‘‘so sad’’ to hear Rutherford had died.
‘‘Thoughts with his family and friends at this time. Top man.’’
An obituary will follow.