South Africa batsman Herschelle Gibbs was scheduled to fly to New Delhi on Tuesday, hoping to put the Hansie Cronje match-fixing scandal behind him once and for all.
Gibbs, accompanied by his lawyer, will meet police commissioner KK Paul to answer a series of questions about the match-fixing affair, which was unearthed in India in 2000. The crime branch of the Delhi police found that the South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje was involved in the scandal.
Gibbs admitted to the King Commission of Inquiry that he had accepted money from Cronje to score less than 20 runs in a specific match. He went on to make 74, and said he had ”forgotten” about the arrangement in his excitement. Cronje, who later died in a plane crash, received a life ban, and Gibbs was banned for a year.
”I have a copy of the questions they want to ask me,” Gibbs told the United News of India. ”It’s the same old stuff I answered before the King Commission, with one or two more.
”In a way, I’m looking forward to putting this behind me, but I’m also a bit nervous about meeting the police.”
South Africa cricket coach Mickey Arthur said before the Proteas’ departure for India last week that Gibbs would join the rest of the team after his meeting with the police.
”His appointment with the police, which will take place at his hotel, is not expected to last more than an hour and a half,” said Arthur.
”After that, he’ll join the rest of the team, and play in our last warm-up match before the start of the Champions Trophy.”
It will be Gibbs’s first visit to India since the match-fixing scandal broke. He and Nicky Boje, whom the Delhi police also wanted to question, both made themselves unavailable for tours to India in 2004 and 2005.
Meanwhile, the South African High Commissioner in India, Francis Moloi, has told the Press Trust of India that he hoped the matter would be dealt with speedily.
”We can’t have this issue hanging like a sword over Gibbs’s head for a long time,” said Moloi.
”We would not want to interfere in the legitimate legal process, but we would want processes like this to have some form of finality.
”A speedy resolution of the issue would be most welcome, so that we can get on with the business of cricket, which the people of India love a great deal.”
Gibbs said he did not think the police interview would be much of a distraction before the Champions Trophy.
”It will only take a day to sort things out, and then there will be another three days before out first match against New Zealand, so that will leave me enough time to focus on cricket,” he said. — Sapa