/ 17 April 2000

‘No Cronje inquiry yet’ says department

ALAN FINLAY, Johannesburg | Monday 8.00am.

A JUDICIAL inquiry into South African cricket will only get going once an appropriate judge, who will head the inquiry, is identified — and depending on his or her availability.

It was anticipated that the inquiry would get going on Monday.

But Graham Abrahams, the spokesman for Sports Minister Ngconde Balfour told ZA*NOW

on Monday that there is no specific time frame for the inquiry yet. “Reports that the inquiry will get going today [Monday] are jumping the gun. The process has already started in that we have approached judges, but no-one has been identified,” said Abrahams.

Abrahams would not say which judges have been approached.

“There will definitely be no announcement today [Monday]. It all depends on the availability of the judge.”

Meanwhile Protea captain Shaun Pollock said his team’s series victory over Australia at the Wanderers in Johannesburg on Sunday was largely due to the work of sacked captain Hansie Cronje.

Cronje was dropped from the team following allegations of match-fixing, and his admission that he had recieved money from an Indian bookmaker during a recent tri-angular series with Zimbabwe and England in South Africa.

The allegations will form the core of the judicial inquiry into the sport.