Cricketer Duncan Fletcher was born

On this day in 1948, Duncan Andrew Gwynne Fletcher was born in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia (modern day Harare, Zimbabwe) and was one of five brothers in a Rhodesian farming family. The family moved from Kent to Rhodesia in 1933. Fletcher served his national service as a Rifleman in the Rhodesia Regiment between 1966 and 1967 and joined the regular force in the Rhodesian Light Infantry in 1967 and attained the rank of Staff Sergeant in 1975. He then went on to Officer School at the School of Infantry in 1975 and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Rhodesia Regiment Territorial Army battalion. He left the Army in 1980 as a captain. As a player, Fletcher was a member of the Rhodesia cricket team during the 1970s, which at that time participated in the South African domestic competition, the Currie Cup; he also played in South Africa for Western Province. Following Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, Fletcher became captain of the Zimbabwean team, leading the team to victory in the 1982 ICC Trophy.