OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Wednesday 6.20pm.
SACKED South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje admitted Wednesday that his love of money led to his becoming involved with gamblers and bookmakers and, ultimately, to his downfall.
Giving testimony at the King Commission of inquiry into match-fixing here, Cronje claimed, however, that he had also been driven during his tenure as captain by a fierce patriotism.
Cronje spent about three hours in the witness box after first being warned by Judge Edwin King that he needed to be convinced the disgraced skipper was telling the whole truth in order for him to benefit from an offer of immunity from prosecution.
Despite evidence by a pyschiatrist that he was suffering from clinical depression, Cronje gave evidence clearly, only coming close to breaking down once when he said his “great passion for the game and for my teammates” was matched by “an unfortunate love of money.”
“Yes, I accepted money from bookmakers. Yes, I was trying to feed them information. Yes, I spoke to the players before the match in 1996, but I promise you, every time I walked on to the field, I gave my all for South Africa,” Cronje said, his voice cracking with emotion.
“I do like money, I am not trying to get away from that, but I can promise you that every time I walked I gave everything for my country.”
He said he could have avoided his five-year association with bookmakers and gamblers if he had turned down the first approach to him in January 1995.
Cronje said of his first contact with “John”, who had offered him about $10000 dollars to lose a one-day final against Pakistan in Cape Town: “I wish I could say that I had told him to get lost.”
Instead, he was tempted and asked for time to think about the offer. “A simple no would have made my life a whole lot easier and I wouldnt be in the situation I am in now.”
He told the Commission he earned millions of rands in his time as an international cricketer, but the temptation to make even more money by doing very little had led to his downfall.
“I unreservedly accept that I have brought huge shame on the game and the country for which I have great passion, but I also have an unfortunate love for money,” he said.
Cronje said that once he began accepting money from bookmakers and sports gamblers, it appeared to be a way of making easy money and at times he did not even know the money was coming from.
Malcolm Gray, president-elect of the International Cricket Council (ICC), attended Wednesdays hearings as an observer. Gray, from Sydney, Australia, takes over as ICC president from Jagmohan Dalmiya of India at the ICC congress in London Monday.
The King Commission was set up to investigate the period from November 1, 1999 to April 17, 2000 and the time in December 1996 when Cronje allegedly passed on an offer to the South African team to accept money for losing a match in Mumbai, India. — AFP