Marianne Merten
When Hansie Cronje sat down for his second day of cross- examination this week few expected another bombshell from the Proteas’ disgraced and apologetic ex- captain. Instead he revealed he wished he had accepted the $250 000 offered to the team to throw the 1996 match in Mumbai.
“I was annoyed with myself for not taking it … there was nothing stopping me,” Cronje said, adding: “I would have been a richer man.”
He was replying to a question from the King commission’s evidence leader, Shamila Bathoi, about what happened after the team had rejected the offer by Indian bookmaker Mukesh “MK” Gupta to throw the one-day international at the end of the tour of India.
The incident was passed off as a joke when players Andrew Hudson, Derek Crookes and Darryl Cullinan made it clear they would not entertain it.
“I didn’t see the bad side of it at the time … didn’t think it was very bad, bad, bad,” Cronje replied when asked if he did not realise he could corrupt younger players. “I thought it was okayish.”
Bathoi probed Cronje about his erratic pattern: accepting money from bookmakers on one day, refusing another offer days later. She also grilled him on the contradiction between taking money but insisting he had not rigged his performance. Both lines of questioning stood out as the only instances of vigorous cross-examination to which Cronje was subjected this week.
It emerged during Cronje’s cross- examination that London-based bookmaker Sanjeev “Sanjay” Chawla had indicated he expected Cronje to involve other players and throw at least one match this year.
Cronje nevertheless told the commission: “I honestly thought if Mr Sanjay was not happy with what I did I could give the money back.” He added that he thought he would string the bookmaker along by lying to him about approaching other players.
In what could become an added twist in the tale, South African bookmaker Marlon Aronstam is expected to testify that it had been Cronje who asked him how to make money – to which he merely replied that the ball was in Cronje’s court.
The two met in a hotel room during the rained-out match against England at Centurion Park in January. Aronstam, who in March sold his stake in the NSI betting company, is also scheduled to testify.
During the hearings, it has already emerged that Aronstam paid Cronje R53 000 and a ladies’ leather jacket for what he called reports on pitch conditions. However, he is expected to say that Cronje told him he was prepared to throw the game against India in Cochin in March.
During earlier cross-examination it emerged how Cronje’s hand seemed to have been forced after opening batsman Herschelle Gibbs spilled the beans on how he had agreed to an offer of $15 000 to score fewer than 20 runs in the one-day international at Nagpur.
Asked under cross-examination whether he would have come clean anyway, Cronje said: “I can’t give an answer. Probably not. I don’t think so.”
Instead the commission heard that the handwritten confessional letter of April 11 was an attempt to “make peace with the United Cricket Board” for lying to them when Indian police first revealed the match-fixing allegations on April 7.
Cronje, who was sacked as captain on April 11, has repeatedly blamed his greed and “unfortunate love” of money for accepting money from bookmakers.
Yet he was by no means a poor man. He received a multimillion-rand combined income from the United Cricket Board, Free State Cricket Board and endorsements, and an added R1,4-million during his benefit year. Neither was he a large spender, be it in bars or restaurants where owners often treated him.
Much is at stake for Cronje at the commission as the offer of immunity from prosecution depends on commission chair Judge Edwin King being satisfied Cronje has told the whole truth.
King raised concerns that Cronje’s affidavit handed to the commission last Thursday seemed in places merely to seek to comply with the commission’s terms of references.
An interim report, which may not necessarily include any recommendations, must be handed to President Thabo Mbeki next Friday. A finding on whether Cronje told the whole truth may only be made at the end of the commission’s work.
It remains unclear how the United Cricket Board will emerge from the commission. Minister of Sport and Recreation Ngconde Balfour told the Mail & Guardian it was difficult to comprehend how the cricket board had not been alert to the match-fixing claims earlier.