OWN CORRESPONDENT, Sydney | Wednesday 3.00pm
AUSTRALIAN batsman Mark Waugh, fined for taking money from bookmakers five years ago, refused on Wednesday to talk about the Hansie Cronje scandal.
“I’m going home, the season’s over,” said Waugh, who declined to answer questions when he returned from South Africa where Australia’s three-match limited overs series was over-shadowed by the South African captain’s admission he accepted money from a bookmaker for “information and forecasting”.
Five years ago, Waugh and star leg-spinner Shane Warne were fined a combined total of $18000 after they admitted receiving cash from an Indian bookmaker for providing pitch and weather information.
Like Waugh and Warne, Cronje said he’d been “naive” although he added the word “foolish” where they’d used “stupid”.
Unlike them, he also stands accused by Indian police of the considerably more serious charge of match-fixing — something he has denied.
Waugh, who has played international cricket virtually non-stop over the past two years, was in no mood to chat with the media at Sydney Airport.
Australian team manager Steve Bernard said the Waugh/Warne case is history.
“I think what has happened with Mark and Shane has gone, the action has been taken and we are in a new era now and we’re trying to make sure it’s a clean one,” Bernard said.
He disagreed when asked if Waugh had declined to talk because the player still felt pressure over the issue.
“I don’t think so, I think it’s probably because he’s answered the questions thousands of time, it’s not as if he has gone into hibernation for two years and nothing has been said,” Bernard said.
“It’s constantly brought up I would imagine, so I suppose he doesn’t feel he can add anything more to the debate.”
Allrounder Shane Lee insisted surprisingly the Australian team had steered clear of the topic while in South Africa.
“We didn’t really know too much about what was going on, we certainly weren’t trying to focus on that,” Lee said. “But the things that have happened are obviously detrimental to cricket.”
Coach John Buchanan said both South Africa and Australia tried to put the issue behind them and get on with the game.
“I think they were a bit like us, they were trying to forget the peripheral stuff and just get on with the game and obviously they did it pretty well, because they played good cricket,” he said. — AFP