Hansie Cronje, match-fixing and plane crash that left a complex legacy

Hansie Cronje, a stricken figure, was crumpled on the floor in an Edwardian building’s wood-panelled annex in Cape Town.

Away from the flashbulbs, and the media feeding frenzy, in the bowels of the Centre of the Book in the city’s legal district, the exhausted former South Africa cricket captain, clad in a charcoal suit, had collapsed in tears.

His brothers Frans and Ewie tried to comfort him. Hansie had just given evidence to the King Commission – the inquiry charged with investigating match-fixing allegations in cricket of which he was at the centre.

After his shocking death in a plane crash, Hansie’s funeral would feature both Ewie and Frans as pallbearers just under two years later.

It is now 25 years since Cronje’s life was turned upside down, and cricket was thrown into crisis, by a scandal which rocked the sport.

Wessel Johannes “Hanssie” Cronje was born in Bloemfontein to a wealthy, deeply Christian family.

Cronje was educated at the prestigious Grey College where he was head boy, captained the school in both rugby and cricket, and was earmarked for great things.

Allan Donald, a childhood friend of Cronje and a student at the same city’s Technical High School, claimed that Hansie was a “deep thinker” who had “leadership qualities all over him” even as a teenager.

Cronje was appointed Orange Free State captain aged 21 and the batting all-rounder soon became a part of the post-apartheid South Africa team which re-emerged on the international stage.

In 1994, he was appointed Proteas captain, and his astute tactics and assured demeanor gave him a statesmanlike air as he transformed the team into a formidable international force.

Cronje also forged a close personal relationship with president Nelson Mandela.

Cronje was one of the Afrikaner politicians who filled the vacuum when they started to fade from view.

Mandela singled out Cronje in 1996 for the “excellent manner” in which he “led the national team” at a time when “sport had played a role in uniting our country”.

A persona like Cronje had a transcendence beyond cricket.

Former England batter Mark Butcher recalled Cronje was “incredibly personable, very charismatic, pretty humble and had a sense of humour” off the field.

Cronje had a darker side, though. Especially when it came to money.

Cronje was a sponsors’ dream, and the endorsements flowed. She was attractive and very approachable. Yet Donald said Cronje was a “tight git” when it came to things as simple as buying post-match drinks.

However, Cronje’s frugality did not just stop at a round in. It bordered on the obsessive.

As part of a sponsorship deal with Puma, he would receive free clothing and equipment, but he would instead sell any unused items to younger players for nothing.

Cronje was also one of the most approachable cricket captains in the world, and he frequently received calls from people, especially while he was on tour in South Asia.

The rest of the South Africa squad would roll their eyes when yet another stranger would walk in for a meeting with him.

It sparked conversations with dishonest individuals. In particular those involved with betting, and there was an early portent of what was to come in 1996.

Before a one-off international game between South Africa and India, which was scheduled to come to an end of a Test tour as a benefit for Mohinder Amarnath, Cronje convened a meeting in their Mumbai hotel to take into consideration an offer for $25,000 to play the match.

It was rejected, but it showed how secure Cronje was in his position.

According to South African journalist Neil Manthorp, “bringing it up in a team meeting demonstrated the power and untouchability he felt.”

Fast forward to Nagpur in 2000, Cronje attempted to coerce South Africa batter Herschelle Gibbs and seam bowler Henry Williams into spot-fixing offences.

Both men agreed, but they later failed to follow the instructions.

“I always found it a struggle to actually say ‘ no ‘ to him, you know”? reflected Gibbs

“He was regarded in such high esteem and respected so much, and I never once thought of the consequences”.

Although neither Williams nor Gibbs were white players, those who know Cronje refute any claims that it was racist.

Still, how was Cronje able to manipulate his team-mates with such ease? Manthorp claimed that “very few people were standing up to him” and that he was on an “elevated platform.”

“Hansie had quite a temper. He had, in my opinion, grown accustomed to being questioned, he continued.

The most infamous of Cronje’s dealings with bookmakers came during the rain-affected fifth Test between South Africa and England at Centurion Park in early 2000.

Cronje created an unprecedented innings forfeiture for both sides as a result after the Proteas resumed their first innings on the fifth day, prompting a bookie named Marlon Aronstam.

England captain Nasser Hussain later compared his agreement with Cronje over what target his side would chase to the haggle scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian – Cronje immediately accepted the figure Hussain asked for.

Even if it didn’t quite resonate with everyone, Cronje’s creative approach to produce a result on what otherwise would have been a dead-end day of a Test was largely praised.

“After the initial celebrations I realised I did not experience the usual euphoria that would follow a Test win”, said Butcher.

“It didn’t feel like we’d earned it,” I said almost immediately.

Michael Holding, covering the match for Sky Sports, received “tons of phone calls and letters” over something he said on air during a commentary stint, having smelt a rat.

Holding said, “I promised that people would start talking about bookmakers” if this game were being played on the Indian subcontinent.

Cronje’s and South African cricket officials’ denials and wider disbelief were sparked when Delhi police released transcripts of conversations that were captured in early April 2000.

Cronje was initially identified in the calls by a quirk of fate.

The deputy commissioner of Delhi’s crime department, Pradeep Srivastava, had been gathering tapes from his time working on extortion cases.

One of Srivastava’s children had listened to a wire-tap cassette, left in the home hi-fi system, and asked his father why he had a recording of Cronje’s voice.

Srivastava’s son recognized Cronje’s voice after watching a post-match interview with him on Indian television the day before.

With the net closing, Cronje came clean.

In a Durban hotel where the pair were staying at 3 a.m. on April 11, 2000, he confessed to Rory Steyn, a South African security consultant working for the Australia cricket team.

“I walked into his suite and all the lights were on”, Steyn remembered.

You might have guessed, but some of the things being said against me are actually true, he said in a handwritten document.

A month later, Cronje attended the King Commission where he was offered immunity from prosecution in exchange for full disclosure.

Cronje shared his side of the story during the three days of cross-examinations that spanned South Africa and the cricket world.

Or at least some of it, given the input of his own lawyers.

He acknowledged accepting large sums of money, as well as giving his wife Bertha a leather jacket in exchange for providing information to bookmakers and enlisting his teammates in poor football.

But he claimed South Africa had never “thrown” or “fixed” a match under his captaincy.

I apologise to my wife, family, and especially my team-mates during a somewhat robotic reading of a 45-minute opening statement.

Cronje was banned from cricket for life, unsuccessfully challenging the suspension.

When Cronje passed away in a plane crash in June 2002, further investigations into the truth of what he claimed during the inquiry were stopped.

Cronje had boarded a small cargo aircraft in Johannesburg which went down in mountainous terrain amid poor weather conditions while attempting to land at George airport.

Cronje was visiting his wife at their home close to Fancourt Estate, a posh golf resort, when he was a manager of an account for a company that manufactures heavy-duty construction equipment at the time.

His death was put down to weather, pilot error and possible instrument failure, but nevertheless prompted conspiracy theories.

Former South Africa international Clive Rice, who played three ODIs for the country, attributed Cronje’s passing to Bob Woolmer, the former coach of South Africa, who passed away in the same year.

“Certain people needed him]Cronje] out. It didn’t matter whether one, two, or fifteen people were going to pass away, according to Rice, who passed away in 2015.

“Hansie was the one that was going to have to go and if they could cover it up as a plane crash then that was fine”.

Even Cronje himself had a spooky understanding of the possibility of “die in a plane crash” as a result of “constant travel by air” in speeches and articles.

Ed Hawkins, a specialist betting investigative journalist, dismissed the notion that bookmakers were somehow behind the incident.

“I’ve never found any information that was really worth my time or effort to conduct a thorough investigation,” Hawkins said.

Cronje’s ashes were placed in a memorial at his beloved Grey College.

Since the former South Africa captain’s thorny relationship with bookmakers was exposed, a generation has passed, but his legacy is still complex.

His death at the age of 32 meant he was denied an opportunity at redemption within a sport he felt so connected to.

His story might have been different if some Cronje had been vulnerable and had the anti-corruption measures in place had been in place.

“In a moment of stupidity and weakness”, Cronje himself said, “I allowed Satan to dictate terms to me rather than the Lord”.

After the King Commission, Cronje’s life path had changed for the better, according to those close to him.

Cronje’s brother Frans was the producer of a film based on Hansie in 2008 which portrayed the ex- South Africa skipper in a sympathetic light.

A young black boy is seen fixing a poster of Hansie back together in a scene in the movie.

It was a metaphor for the national psyche which, post-apartheid, makes it “a lot easier for people to forgive” in South Africa according to Frans.

However, Professor Tim Noakes, a sports scientist who served with the South African team in the 1990s, went as far as calling Cronje a “psychopath.”

“He fitted the characteristics and it’s no remorse, no conscience”, he said.

I just saw enough proof for it in this man, despite the fact that I am aware that you cannot diagnose someone without having thoroughly examined them.

The currency Cronje should have been remembered for was the number of runs he scored as an inspirational captain, rather than deposits in bank accounts in his name in the Cayman Islands.

“I don’t believe he was evil,” he said. I think that’s far, far too strong a word”, said Manthorp.

“I do believe he manipulated things well.” I think that he was acutely aware of the power and influence that he had”.

It may be even more difficult to separate the man from the crimes for those outside the country, especially in a sport like cricket, where the expected moral compass is.

“I think that Hansie is a villain in this story”, Butcher added. He may not be ass=”ssrcss-xbdn93-ItalicText e5tfeyi2″>the villain, but he is undoubtedly one.