/ 16 April 2000

OW ‘EX-LOVER’ CLAIMS HANSIE ‘CHEATED’

DISGRACED former cricket captain Hansie Cronje faced damaging new allegations when a former girlfriend told Britain’s top-selling Sun tabloid that he was a love cheat. Cronje ended an 18-month affair with Debbie Coleman of Derbyshire in central England as they lay in bed after making love, the Sun reported. Coleman, 33, told the newspaper she first suspected Cronje, 30, was two-timing her after finding love letters in his suitcase. “I was unpacking his case when I found 10 cards from the same girl, professing her undying love. He claimed teammates had done it as a joke,” said Coleman, who claims to have met Cronje in 1993 at the South African gym where she worked as a keep-fit instructor. “I thought it would be OK until that last time we made love. Afterwards, he just turned to me and said: ‘It’s over’.”