Percy Sonn, the first African president of the International Cricket Council, has died in Cape Town at the age of 57, it was announced on Sunday.

Sonn had undergone a routine bowel operation on Monday, a procedure that had been scheduled back in February.

But complications developed and after the surgery he was admitted to the intensive care unit at Durbanville.

He leaves his wife Sandra and three children, a daughter and two sons, plus his mother, six brothers and a sister.

Sonn, the former president of the United Cricket Board of South Africa (UCB), succeeded Ehsan Mani at the helm of the ICC in June 2006.

He delivered a speech at the opening ceremony of the World Cup in Jamaica but took a low-key role in the maligned tournament from that point.

In March, Sonn was invited to extend his standard two-year term by one after a deadlock at a board meeting over his two potential successors, Welshman David Morgan and India’s Sharad Pawar.

Born in Oudtshoorn in the Western Cape, Sonn, a lawyer, was in charge of the Scorpions - South Africa’s equivalent of the FBI - and served as the deputy national director of public prosecutions before moving into cricket administration.

In 2002, as president of the the United Cricket Board of South Africa, he controversially over-ruled the selection of Jacques Rudolph for the New Year Test against Australia, opting instead for Rudolph’s black room-mate, Justin Ontong.

At Paarl, during the a 2003 World Cup featuring India and the Netherlands, he embarrassed himself after over-indulging in alcohol.