Edward Cakobau

Wisden obituary
Ratu (Prince) Sir Edward Cakobau, died in Suva, Fiji, on June 25 at the age of 64. Deputy Prime Minister of Fiji, he had played first-class cricket for Auckland and also for my Fiji team touring New Zealand in 1948. He joined this tour halfway through on his return from an administrative course at Wadham, Oxford, and when my vice-captain, Ratu Sir George Cakobau, GCMG, (now Governor General of Fiji) broke his toe batting barefoot shortly after his cousin joined the team Ratu Sir Edward acted as vice-captain. He was the only Fijian to have been seen playing in this country - for Sir Pelham Warner's X1 and other teams by arrangement with Arthur Langford - barefoot and in the characteristic sulu (white knee-length skirt). Son of King George 11 of Tonga (he was Queen Salote's half-brother and uncle of the present King) and of Adi Cakobau, the leading Chieftainess of Fiji, he went to Wanganui College, New Zealand. Awarded the MC fighting against the Japanese in the Solomon Islands, he was only the second Fijian to be a District Commissioner. President of the Fiji Cricket Association and manager of the Fiji Rugby Touring Team which almost defeated Wales in 1964, he had represented Fiji at the Coronations of King George VI and the present Queen. When the Colony became an Independent Dominion in 1970, he became KBE and Deputy Prime Minister, acting frequently for the Prime Minister (Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, another first-class cricketer) during the latter's absences abroad. It was his great-grandfather, Ratu Seru Cakobau, the only King of Fiji, who had given Fiji to Britain 99 years ago. Ratu Sir Edward was a batsman of imposing style with a high, almost circular back lift: he was very strong on the off. His bowling was a facsimile of D'Oliveira's. Before high office totally occupied him he coached a number of Fijians who later went on representative tours of New Zealand. Captaining Fiji against a visiting New Zealand side in 1937, he scored the only century to be made against any representative side touring Fiji. (There have been fewer than half a dozen such representative visits in Fiji's 100 years of cricket). A wholly charming personality, greatly in social demand, not least as raconteur, Ratu Sir Edward's anecdotes in soft, perfect English, often making fun of the notorious cannibalism of his ancestors, provided universal amusement.
Frank Sibbles, The Cricketer, September 1973