The cricketing world is waiting for Hansie Cronje’s testimony
Mail & Guardian reporters
When Hansie Cronje takes the stand he will reveal the tragic story of his extraordinary double life as South Africa’s captain – a life that finally brought him crashing down in a flurry of death threats to him and his family.
In a statement that will shock an already stunned cricketing world, it is understood Cronje will reveal he first took payment from a bookmaker as far back as 1995. Cronje had absolutely no idea that it was the most poisoned bait in the history of sport.
It seemed, if not innocent, then certainly as harmless as Shane Warne and Mark Waugh believed their payments of $5E000 and $8E000 in 1994 to be. He supplied information so innocuous he thought he couldn’t possibly be doing anything wrong. Pitch conditions, likely scores, the form of certain key players … all the things that could be found in newspapers and heard on television.
From that first moment, Cronje had the hook in his mouth and he could never rip himself free. As the profile of match- fixing grew in prominence throughout the world, Cronje’s predicament became increasingly perilous and the thugs who controlled him had more and more ammunition to hold against his head.
It was certainly not every match, and many series were completely “clean”, but at certain times, in certain countries, notably India, the phone calls and the covert meetings would start again. The name of Indian batting great of former captain Mohammed Azharuddin will feature in Cronje’s statement.
The South African was well paid for his assistance, of course, but not as well paid as many people believe.
Cronje is expected to discuss his alleged receipt of tens of thousands of rand – and a leather jacket – for ensuring a result on the final day of the Centurion Park Test last year between England and South Africa. The match was headed for a rain- soaked draw before Cronje and England captain Nasser Hussain agreed to forfeit an innings each and play for a result. England won, but Cronje will claim that he tried his utmost to win. A draw would have been a disastrous financial setback for the bookmakers.
Cronje will claim that his passion for the team never diminished in all that time, and that his desperation to win was not altered. But the spectre of a career crashing down in ignominy and shame because of his dark secret kept him quiet.
The bookmakers’ demands gradually increased, and Cronje could find no way out. He will apparently detail how, when certain match forecasts he had made did not come true, the bookmakers were forced to try and chase their losses with a couple of “certainties”. They were no longer satisfied with Cronje’s opinion or his hunches – they started demanding facts.
He is likely to say he was able to provide facts without involving or compromising any of his team-mates or the final result. South Africa would still be playing to win, and they often did. But all the time Cronje knew that somewhere, someone was watching – and expecting.
The situation had reached crisis point even before the tour to India and Cronje will testify that he believed it would be his last. The thought that an untimely end might await him in either India or Sharjah was always on his mind but he hoped that he might be able to retire from international cricket and finally put an end to the double life he had been leading.
In Cronje’s handwritten confession, extracts of which were published in the Mail & Guardian two weeks ago, he says: “The Holy Spirit has guided me to bring out into the open the lies that have been flying around the last couple of weeks.” He was not, however, just talking about the lies that he, Herschelle Gibbs, Henry Williams and Pieter Strydom were telling. He was talking about the last five years of his life.
Cronje repeatedly refers to his beleaguered wife Bertha, “… the most unbelievable person in the world. She deserves 45 medals for coping with all the pressures and loneliness.” Later Cronje says: “Bertha deserves better than me.”
Cronje often felt guilty about the amount of time he spent on tour and how much time Bertha spent alone, but when the bookmakers’ threats extended to her the former national captain suffered an emotional meltdown. He had become used to carrying an enormous burden of guilt and fear on his own shoulders, but now it was threatening to touch, and harm, the person he loved most.
The M&G’s investigations into the underworld of illegal betting, involving the Middle East – specifically Dubai – as a conduit for placing bets on the subcontinent, suggest that Cronje’s fears are very real.
A professional gambler based in the Cape explained how he places his own bets out of an account in Guernsey with a “middleman” in Dubai who then places the bets with illegal bookmakers in India and Pakistan. The middleman, who takes bets from all over the world, makes his money by offering slightly less generous odds than those in India and the punter avoids betting tax (6% in South Africa, 9% in England).
“The reasons for remaining anonymous are pretty obvious,” said the man, who called himself “Rodney” but admitted that it wasn’t his real name. “As a professional my margin is only about 10%, so I need to protect that.
“My contact in Dubai first asked me whether the South Africans were honest after they lost to Zimbabwe at Kingsmead, because he lost a lot of money. But it was during the India one-dayers that he really started to worry because he was hearing things from India that made him nervous. About halfway through [the series] he said to me that he thought the South African captain’s life might be in danger.
‘I have absolutely no doubt that my man is not involved in match-fixing, but obviously he knows about it and he looks out for large amounts of money placed on strange or unlikely bets. But he said Sanjay Chawla was neither a bookmaker nor a legitimate punter. He said he was the worst kind of cut-throat and a gangster who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted,” Rodney said.
“I’m not sure it’s a very good idea to investigate too much, seriously,” said. “They are dangerous people.”
That was confirmed when two representatives of a private security firm inspected the Centre for the Book, venue for the King inquiry, on Tuesday afternoon with a view to making it “secure”. That job seems to be nearly impossible with little or no security checks in place so far and unrestricted access to the public.
There will be several people deeply concerned at the prospect that Cronje will give the names of his tormentors to the inquiry and testify to the dealings and entrapment techniques of both bookmakers and betting syndicates. Those men, it seems, will not be concerned about the measures they need to take to prevent testimony.
Cronje’s involvement with bookmakers, however, is not confined to the subcontinent. There is still much for him to answer when he takes the stand, but during our conversation with Rodney it emerged that Cronje had spent his millennium celebrations at “a private bookmaker’s party”.
The M&G has learned that Cronje did, indeed, attend a party hosted by Seapoint bookmaker Henry Mansell – but he was not alone. His wife Bertha was with him as were Kate and Jonty Rhodes, who remembers the evening vividly.
“A few days before the millennium we still didn’t have a plan and Kate said ‘You’d better make one because I’m not spending New Year’s in a Garden Court!’ So we booked and paid for two rooms in the lodge at Erinvale [golf estate] and joined the party in the restaurant there. The music was terrible and we didn’t know anybody so we left at about 12.30.”
Does Jonty remember meeting Mansell, who had hired the restaurant for his own party?
“Yes, I met him. I’d never met him before and I didn’t know who he was, and I must say I got the same impression when Hansie met him. There was no ‘Hi, nice to see you again’ or anything like that. I didn’t think they knew each other,” Rhodes told the M&G.
However, Mansell attended Michaelhouse with South African coach Graham Ford, and it appears their trip to the party had nothing to do with Cronje’s betting activities.
There is nothing to suggest Mansell, who is reputable and, incidentally, a bridge player for South Africa’s national team, is in any way implicated in Cronje’s illegal betting activities.