Hansie Cronje, match fixing and the plane crash which left a complex legacy

BBC News

2 days ago

Inside a wood-panelled annex of an Edwardian building in Cape Town the stricken figure of Hansie Cronje lay crumpled on the floor.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 father Ewie and brother Frans 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.Just under two years later and both Ewie and Frans would be pallbearers at Hansie's funeral following his shock death in a plane crash.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.Cronje's story, re-examined in Sport's Strangest Crimes on BBC Sounds, is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
The 'tight git' close to Mandela
Wessel Johannes 'Hansie' Cronje was born into a sporting, and deeply Christian, family in Bloemfontein. 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.Ex-South Africa fast bowler Allan Donald, who was at the Technical High School in the same city, said that even as a teenager the young Hansie was a "a deep thinker" who had "leadership qualities all over him".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.He was handed the captaincy of the Proteas in 1994 and his astute tactics and calm assurance gave him a statesmanlike air as he turned the team into a formidable international side.Cronje also forged a close personal relationship with president Nelson Mandela. During a time when Afrikaner politicians began to disappear from view, Cronje was one of those from that community who filled the vacuum.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".Cronje was a figure who seemed to transcend cricket.Former England batter Mark Butcher recalled Cronje was "incredibly personable, very charismatic, pretty humble and had a sense of humour" off the field.However, there was a darker side to Cronje. Especially when it came to money.Good looking, and extremely approachable, Cronje was a sponsors' dream and the endorsements flowed. Yet Donald said Cronje was a "tight git" when it came to things as simple as buying post-match drinks.Cronje's frugality did not just extend to not getting a round in, though. It bordered on the obsessive.He would receive free clothing and kit as part of a sponsorship deal with Puma but would sell any unused items to younger players, rather than giving it away for nothing.During a stint playing for Leicestershire he whisked his wife Bertha away for a romantic break in Paris but his sister said the couple survived "on bread and water" as Hansie baulked at prices in the French capital.
'A struggle to actually say no to him'
That love of money meant Cronje was also one of the most accessible cricket captains around and he was regularly visited by people, particularly while 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 led to dealings with unscrupulous characters. In particular those involved with betting, and there was an early portent of what was to come in 1996. Before a one-off ODI between South Africa and India, tagged on to the end of a Test tour as a benefit match for Mohinder Amarnath, Cronje called a meeting in their Mumbai hotel for the players to consider an offer of $250,000 to throw the match.It was rejected, but it showed how secure Cronje was in his position."Bringing it up in a team meeting was indicative of the power and untouchability that he felt," observed South African journalist Neil Manthorp.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 subsequently did not carry out 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."Both Gibbs and Williams were non-white players but suggestions it was racially motivated are dismissed by those who know Cronje.Still, how was Cronje able to manipulate his team-mates with such ease? Manthorp said he was on an "elevated platform" and "very few people were prepared to stand up to him"."Hansie had quite a temper. He'd become, I think, accustomed to not being questioned," he added. 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.With the Proteas recommencing their first innings on the fifth day Cronje - prompted by a bookie named Marlon Aronstam - contrived an unprecedented innings forfeiture for both sides to ensure a result.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.Cronje's innovative action to create a result on what otherwise would have been a dead final day of a Test largely drew praise, even if did not quite sit right with everyone."After the initial celebrations I realised I did not experience the usual euphoria that would follow a Test win," said Butcher."Almost instantly I knew why - it didn't feel we'd earned it."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."I said if this game was being played on the Indian subcontinent, people would start talking about bookmakers," Holding said."I just knew something was going on and that was my total focus. I was basically disgusted at what I was watching."
Confession, cross-examination and death
When Delhi police released transcripts of recorded conversations between Cronje and Indian bookmaker Sanjeev Chawlar in early April 2000 it was met with denials from the man himself and South African cricket officials, and wider disbelief.Cronje was initially identified in the calls by a quirk of fate. Pradeep Srivastava, the deputy commissioner of Delhi's crime department, had been working on extortion cases and taken some tapes home with him.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 had watched a post-match interview with Cronje on Indian television the previous day and recognised his voice.With the net closing, Cronje came clean. At 3am on 11 April 2000 he confessed to Rory Steyn, a South African security consultant working for the Australia cricket team, in a Durban hotel where the pair were staying."I walked into his suite and all the lights were on," Steyn remembered."He had a handwritten document and said 'you may have guessed, but some of the stuff that is being said against me is actually true'."A month later, Cronje attended the King Commission where he was offered immunity from prosecution in exchange for full disclosure.During three days of cross examinations, broadcast on television and radio, which gripped South Africa and the cricket world, Cronje gave his side of the story. Or at least some of it, given the input of his own lawyers.He admitted to taking large sums of money, as well as accepting a leather jacket for his wife Bertha, in exchange for giving information to bookmakers and asking his team-mates to play badly.But he claimed South Africa had never "thrown" or "fixed" a match under his captaincy."To my wife, family, and team-mates, in particular, I apologise," he said during a rather robotic reading of an opening statement lasting 45 minutes.Cronje was banned from cricket for life, unsuccessfully challenging the suspension. Further investigations into the truth of what Cronje said during the inquiry were halted when he died in a plane crash in June 2002.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, then working as an account manager for a manufacturer of heavy-duty construction equipment, was flying back to see his wife at their home near Fancourt Estate, a luxury golf resort.His death was put down to weather, pilot error and possible instrument failure, but nevertheless prompted conspiracy theories.Former Nottinghamshire captain Clive Rice, who played three ODIs for South Africa, called Cronje's death "very fishy" and linked it to the subsequent death of Bob Woolmer, the former South Africa coach who was in charge of Pakistan when he died."Certain people needed him [Cronje] out. Whether it was one, two, or 15 people that were going to die it didn't matter," said 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."Eerily, Cronje himself had predicted in speeches, and written in a magazine, of the potential to "die in plane crash" because of the "constant travel by air".Ed Hawkins, a specialist betting investigative journalist, dismissed the notion that bookmakers were somehow behind the incident."I've never found any information basically worth my time or effort to launch a full-scale investigation," Hawkins said.Steyn, the security consultant called it "ludicrous" to suggest there was a "conspiracy to murder him by bringing the plane down".
Cronje's complex legacy
Cronje's ashes were placed in a memorial at his beloved Grey College. A generation has now passed since the former South Africa captain's murky involvement with bookmakers came to light, but his legacy remains a complex one.His death at the age of 32 meant he was denied an opportunity at redemption within a sport he felt so connected to. For some Cronje had been vulnerable, and had the anti-corruption measures which came in the wake of his fall from grace been in place, his story might have been different."In a moment of stupidity and weakness," Cronje himself said, "I allowed Satan to dictate terms to me rather than the Lord."Those close to him felt that once the depression following the King Commission lifted, Cronje's life path had altered course for the better. 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.In the film there's a scene where a young black boy who had earlier ripped a poster of Hansie off his wall is seen fixing it back together.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.Yet sports scientist Professor Tim Noakes, who worked with the South African team in the Nineties, went as far as to call Cronje a "psychopath"."He fitted the characteristics and it's no remorse, no conscience," he said."I understand that you can't make the diagnosis without having properly examined people, but I just saw enough evidence for it in, in this man."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 think he was evil. I think that's far, far too strong a word," said Manthorp."I do think that he was a skilful manipulator. I think that he was acutely aware of the power and influence that he had."For those outside the country, especially in a sport like cricket with its expected moral compass, it is perhaps even more difficult to separate the man from the crimes."I think that Hansie is a villain in this story," Butcher added. "He might not be the villain, but he's certainly a villain."The full six-part series of 'Sport's Strangest Crimes - Hansie Cronje: Fall From Grace' is available on BBC Sounds.