How an idol of the nation lost his image

In the most traumatic 10 days the United Cricket Board has had in their almost nine years in existence, the fall from grace of their once internationally-respected captain Hansie Cronje threatens to have repercussions stretching well beyond the boundaries of game in this country.

Cronje, at the peak of his powers, the icon of sporting values in a nation where sport is regarded as the arena of equality, has, say many, betrayed their belief in the image of fair play and the game he played. His "I was not totally honest" comment has turned away even those whose interests in the sport was strictly of peripheral nature.

Even minimising damage control in short-term, and some suggest long-term, threatens to tear holes in the vaunted development programme as well as the transformation process. If Cronje could do this what does it say about others involved in the sport? Are they too, not tainted with the same image of carelessness: denial one hour and confession the next?

It could not have come at a worse time for the UCB and their efforts to foster the sport in communities long disadvantaged and still feeling the deprivations caused by years of apartheid. Yet there are any number of theories why Cronje embarrassed his country, teammates, the UCB and family along with numerous others by becoming involved the way he did in what has become a matter of financial disgrace.

In what is the first major scandal of the game of the 21st Century some consideration has to be given to the pressures which Cronje no doubt felt as the captain: Leeds 1998 and Pakistan umpire Javed Akhtar is said to be a good enough starting point. Watching him make a succession of appalling blunders as South Africa lost the series 2-1 to England was, it has been said, enough to turn Cronje's stomach.

Akhtar has since been removed from the International Cricket Council's umpires panel. Cronje, though is as intense in his private life as he was passionate about the sport and the incidents at Leeds, says a former county coach, affected him deeply with the now disgraced South African captain privately expressing misgivings about Akhtar. Soon though the messy facts will emerge as the probe ordered by the Department of Sport and Recreation in consultation with the Justice Ministry and the UCB and their officials, begin the inquiry when some explanations which have occluded the picture will surface.

There is also a suggestion that the break he needed, by coaching Glamorgan this year, had something to do with the Cronje go-kart running out of fuel.

And while this was taking place others were being caught in the web of confusion and naivety as the drama unfolded: hour after hour of fresh revelations created its own surreal image as the initial charges by the New Delhi police were examined and questioned; just their claims were described in disparaging terms. This was always going to be offensive to some.

On April 7, two days before the arrival of the Australians, there was a call from the office about sending an email to read some highly "toxic comment" coming out of India. The way it was presented really did seem as though it was some "trumped up hoax".

After all, Cronje was the South African captain, right? And a man with his deep moral, religious background and upbringing creating a deep streak of good, old fashioned integrity. It was then presumed the New Delhi police had got it all wrong; had gone to the wrong pavilion and taped the wrong people. If indeed what they played at their media conference were tapes of the alleged conversations.

It was 6.15pm that same April 7 evening when the telephone rang in my home in Centurion and a polite voice from Star TV/Radio in New Delhi suggested "the opinion of a CricInfo writer and veteran cricket journalist was worth seeking over the match-fixing charges".Well, why not?

The first step would be to try and clear Cronje's name and as the Aussies arrival was two days off South Africa did not really need such cheap ancillary allegations cluttering the news pages. Being put "on hold" is nothing new: what was, though, and was first confusing, were two voices which were mistaken for the programme producer and one of the station's programme anchor presenters.

After a few seconds the rupee, as it were, dropped: the two seemed to be part of the "police tape" from what was thought to be a copy of, or an actual recording, of the transcript.

So, the "plot" had been uncovered and the hoax theory gained broader currency in South Africa as identifying the voices of Asian origin was used to discredit the tape and the New Delhi police investigation. And as Star Radio did not explain the voices were re-enacting the transcript, well ... the "Hansie is being Framed" headline was a simple enough explanation to a South Africa public demanding a denial of events instead of what some already had already feared: a realisation that a betrayal was about to be uncovered.

Instead of denouement opinions were highlighted by a sense of panic: trauma replaced calm and cool logic was supplanted by dishevelled cunning to heighten the degree of disbelief surrounding the charges laid by the New Delhi police.

After email consultation with a couple of Indian journalist friends the idea was to attack the police investigation to discredit the allegations: call it stepping into a minefield with the next step likely to be the last and the explosion blowing up in their faces.

The two colleagues, trusted friends, suggested an aggressive approach: Indian police had made similar charges but had fallen short on their investigations with their own players. Why drag Cronje into their net? Why make him a scapegoat of their inefficiency to nail the real culprits? What was wrong with assuming the police had bungled again?

Had it not already been suggested in some Indian quarters that it was far from a clear open and shut case? And further argument surfaced, when rereading the transcript, that the grammar, style of delivery and even the vernacular was not Cronje's way speaking. Why, even the Indian captain, Sourav Ganguly found the "entire issue absurd and ridiculous".

What needs to be made clear here is that the honour of the game and its sense of fairplay was being judged; not by its peers but outsiders. In the mind of this New Zealander, however, with high egalitarian ideals the thought of it being a race issue by attacking Indian police did not enter the equation. An opinion was asked and given as honestly as possible.

There was decided conflict here for me as after several visits to Sri Lanka and India, the first in 1962, there is respect and high regard for the people the culture and the exciting spiciness of the Asian landscape with the passion for cricket a common bond.

Yet, when on the evening of April 9, Cronje refuted the charges at a media conference two days later as the UCB gave him their full support, there was an underlined feeling of disquiet and doubts began to grow. Already embattled on two fronts he had not really explained anything, despite claims he had nothing to hide, was innocent and prepared to submit his bank balance in an effort to clear his name. But there was quiet innuendo: too much else had been left unsaid.

Many wanted to still believe in the innocence, that the tapes were indeed "rigged with false information".

Amid all this Steve Waugh's media conference earlier in the day on the three-match series against South Africa was, in some dailies, reduced to a few scant paragraphs. There was more fun off the field.

A subdued Monday morning of April 10 saw further damning evidence, further doubts. Was Cronje the victim of a gambling pay-off over the Centurion Test with bookies from Mumbai to Calcutta angry over the result? The South African government were demanding the tapes to pursue their own evidence as even the country's High Commissioner, Ms Maite Nkoane-Mashabane, had also heard a similar re-enactment of the transcript and dismissed it as the voices were of Asian origin.

A bubble of doubt, which had been growing since the (Sunday) April 9 denial, and that perhaps the New Delhi police were in need of an apology from a variety of quarters, started to nibble at the conscience of those of us who had listened to the persuasive arguments from India and South Africa that it was a badly botched smear campaign.

Other facts began to emerge on April 10 from New Delhi. Police said they had further evidence against Cronje which, it is assumed, had been passed on to their High Commissioner. Cronje, meanwhile, had flown to Cape Town to see the Minister of Sport, Ngconde Balfour and foreign affairs officials.

Behind the scenes movements which only emerged days later (on April 15) were also taking place: Aziz Pahad, South Africa's deputy minister of foreign affairs, had been handed what was said to be "irrefutable evidence" and that in his best interests it would be "advisable to come clean".

From this discussion, it seems, Cronje had a long think about what to do next: it came with the pre-dawn call to Dr Bacher from the team's manager, Goolam Rajah, who said a team crisis had emerged; Cronje talked to the UCB managing director, then called Percy Sonn, the acting UCB president: it ended in his dismissal and what could be the end of his playing career.

About 9.15 am on Tuesday April 11 my mobile phone rings with Patrick Compton, of the Durban-based Daily News, outlining a few sketchy details as I was being driven to Kingsmead. The son of the late Denis Compton, Patrick is a thoughtful cricket man with a passion for the game and its ethics of fairplay; so is Vani Naidoo, who is driving me to Kingsmead. At first it seems that Cronje has withdrawn from the first game of the Standard bank Challenge Series against Australia and is on his way... to Cape Town. Half an hour later the term suspended has entered the story. Suspended? Or fired?

The bubble of doubt which had grown during the last 24 hours had finally bursts and a scandal rocks the nation. There is uproar; there is indignation, colleagues and friends are physically ill: the New Delhi police feel vindicated and say so in a justified comment; the man they had trapped and who at first admitted to being ìstunnedî by the bribery allegations had confessed. They had bravely resisted insults and remained calm, refusing to buckle to political pressure when it came to argument of protocol when making their claims. It takes courage and a deep knowledge that they are right and their detractors are wrong when facing such pressure.

After all, India supported the UCB's nomination when it wanted International Cricket Council membership in June 1991. The government relations between both countries is firm and during Indiaís two tours of South Africa, personal relationships have also encouraged a firm understanding. The UCB, through Dr Ali Bacher, managing director of the board, has issued a statement reaffirming the relationship between the two nations.

What next emerges that hectic Tuesday (April 11) is that Cronje has had his contract terminated, private sponsors are withdrawing and the financial pool, said to earn him R2-million a year, is about to be squeezed dry. Shaun Pollock is named as the new captain.There are new allegations and the scandal, as they have a habit of doing, enters a sordid stage.

As the damning evidence grows, and more information grows, there is concern in areas beyond the game.

Senior black empowerment management are have become disenchanted with the double vision which Cronje has now created. During the 1999 World Cup some followed the team's progress and admired his frank openness and saw him as the spirit of the modern Afrikaner: progressive and all-embracing; a sportsman to be trusted.

Siyabonga Ndaba, a director of a black-owned transport company, looked on Cronje as the sort of role model who could work developing the growth of the new South Africa and the embracing new nationalism. Now he feels as let down as does the Afrikaner wife of a Dutch journalist colleague who holds similar views.

So where does this leave the image of Hansie Cronje with his one-time adoring public believing in his example of good leadership and moral integrity? They are as devastated as they have become confused, seeking answers which even Cronje has failed to supply in his public statement on Thursday April 13.

In every traumatic event a person goes through different stages of working through the soul-wrenching drama which has affected their thinking: in seeking answers they discover the idol has developed flaws and his principles are skewered on a bloodied pikestaff where earning the big buck is seen as being more important than the values of integrity.

Now an outcast Cronje may live uncomfortably with the new image he has created for himself. For the UCB though, it is a matter of living with a shattered dream and recreating a product which is acceptable by the masses. In Cronje they had found the ideal marketing tool to promote the game: even black children had his poster on their wall.

Now it has been taken down and the revelations of how spread betting and bookmakers twisted this to benefit their own greed and the betting public a chance to cash in leaves many with a sordid image of what the game has become.

One area where the culture of the game was taking its own time to evolve is within those black communities where there are new converts: the high density suburbs often overflowing with good humour, where young exuberant neophytes brandish bats in dusty streets indulging in a game of tip and run. It is neither Brian Lara nor Sachin Tendulkar who inhabit their probing imagination when they play their street games.

Their heroes are home-grown: Allan Donald, Jonty Rhodes, Gary Kirsten, Fanie de Villiers, Jacques Kallis, Hansie Cronje... and other members of the South African squad. Although exposure has also helped heal some lacerations, the scabs from generations of cruel deprivation are still visible among the adults. Now the wounds of the past 10 days lay open as concern grows within UCB circles of the how to minimise the damage in which the captain, Cronje, was caught with his hand in the till and, at first, lied about it.

Can the game be trusted? One person does not make a difference: the game is far bigger. Hopefully the transformation process can woo back the alienated. If not the damage the Cronje tapes have caused could become more damning.