It might be two decades since the Hansie Cronje corruption scandal rocked cricket, but even now the ripples are still being felt.
This month marks the 20th anniversary of Cronje being stripped of the South Africa captaincy following an extraordinary sequence of events earlier in 2000.
In January, come the last day of a “dead” Test against England (South Africa had already won the series), a draw seemed inevitable after rain had washed out three days.
Yet Cronje contrived a positive result by getting England captain Nasser Hussain to agree that both sides would forfeit an innings.
England were left with a target of 249 for victory after Cronje declared and eventually won by two wickets.
Traditionalists were aghast at the interference with the “proper” course of a Test, yet few were prepared for what was to come.
In April, Cronje’s image as a religious sportsman — he wore a bracelet inscribed with the words “What Would Jesus Do?” — was shattered for all time.
An Agence France-Presse (AFP) report, later confirmed by New Delhi police, said that the force had telephone recordings of Cronje and an Indian bookmaker discussing predetermined Proteas performances during the tour of India the previous month.
Such was Cronje’s standing at home and abroad, the initial reaction was one of “shock and disbelief.”
It was a sentiment shared by Ali Bacher, managing director of the United Cricket Board, the forerunner of Cricket South Africa.
“When AFP broke the story before the official press conference by the Delhi police, I remember the office receiving a call from Dr Bacher blasting the agency for ruining the reputation of one of South Africa’s most iconic personalities,” said Kuldip Lal, the Delhi-based cricket reporter behind the scoop.
“He threatened to sue us. I thought to myself that if the story is incorrect, a few of us may need to look for another job,” Lal added.
However, Cronje’s partial confession a few days later led to a “feeling of relief” in AFP’s Delhi bureau.
“To his credit, Dr Bacher called the office to apologize for his earlier outburst,” Lal said.
Cronje later confessed to several allegations at the South African government-appointed King Commission, including attempts to bribe Herschelle Gibbs and Henry Williams to underperform in a one-day international against India.
He also admitted to receiving hundreds of thousands of US dollars from bookmakers to prearrange certain conditions — cricket’s complexity means gambling coups are possible without “fixing” the result — with his Centurion effort netting him about US$6,000 and a leather jacket.
Cronje, who insisted that he had never thrown a game, was later given a life ban from cricket, yet his reputation remained high with both his former teammates and the South African public.
Batsman Daryll Cullinan testified that Cronje, who died in a 2002 plane crash, had offered the team US$250,000 to throw a match, before adding that he still thought of him “as a great captain and a great leader.”
Meanwhile, separate national hearings and investigations led to life bans for Pakistan’s Saleem Malik and India’s Mohammad Azharuddin.
Yet their suspensions were among several punishments subsequently overturned, although for Malik and Azharuddin the initial sanctions effectively ended the careers of two world-class batsmen.
The International Cricket Council responded by creating a new anti-corruption unit led by Paul Condon, former head of London’s Metropolitan Police.
However, it was desperately understaffed and 10 years ago it was Britain’s News of the World that exposed the willingness of Pakistan captain Salman Butt, and bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir, to engage in spot-fixing.
Since then a beefed-up unit, respected for its work in educating players about the dangers of corruption, has had a greater impact, with its investigations leading to New Zealand batsman Lou Vincent receiving a life ban for match-fixing in 2014.
However, the rise of Twenty20 franchise leagues and the development of the sport have created new targets for fixers.
As has happened in tennis, they can now turn their attention to less high-profile areas of the game, where the financial rewards for players are far less and the temptation to cheat potentially all the greater.
One constant, though, is that betting on cricket in India, the sport’s biggest market, is illegal, meaning there is no formal regulation, even though gambling on horse racing is not.
When Paddy Dwyer arrived in China in 1976, crowds jostled to catch a glimpse of him and his companions — the first Western soccer team to play in the country. China was emerging from the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, and on the brink of market reforms that would take the country from economic stagnation to explosive growth. “All we could see was lines of people running beside our bus, trying to look in the windows, to see their first visual of a white person,” he said. “It was all bicycles,” he said. “There were very few cars to be seen.” Dwyer,
Jannik Sinner continued his quest to become the first man in history to win five Masters 1000 tournaments in a row with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Danish qualifier Elmer Moller at the Madrid Open on Sunday. The world leader extended his winning streak to 19 matches, a run that began early March in Indian Wells, and he has captured 24 consecutive victories at the Masters 1000 level, dating back to the Paris Masters last October. Searching for a maiden title at this level on clay, Sinner advanced to the round of 16 at the Caja Magica with a 77-minute performance against
Some of Clearlake Capital Group’s largest investors are growing increasingly concerned about how much time the company’s co-founders are spending on sports investments as they have struggled to complete the fundraising for the private equity firm’s latest flagship fund. One of Clearlake’s co-founders, Behdad Eghbali, has been spending what some investors described as a disproportionate amount of time on the firm’s investment in Chelsea Football Club in recent months. Now, co-founder Jose E. Feliciano and his wife, Kwanza Jones, are nearing a record US$3.9 billion deal to acquire the San Diego Padres. That personal investment by Feliciano has set off the latest
A new NZ$683 million (US$404 million) stadium that was a symbol of Christchurch’s struggle to rebuild after a deadly earthquake struck the New Zealand city is to host its first match tomorrow in front of a sellout crowd. A magnitude 6.2 earthquake killed 185 people in February 2011 and toppled or damaged buildings, including the city’s old Lancaster Park. The stadium, which hosted international rugby and cricket, and was home to the Canterbury Crusaders, was badly damaged and never reopened. It was bulldozed in 2019 and turned into sports fields, leaving the Crusaders without a permanent home. Government funding for a new stadium was
RSS