Did Hansie Cronje have a premonition of his unmasking in the match-fixing scandal of 2000? Evidence that has recently come to light suggests that Cronje wanted to step down from the captaincy and hand it over to Shaun Pollock before the Sri Lanka tour in July-August of that year.Cronje, who was exposed in April of that year, stripped of his captaincy and banned for life, died in an air crash in June 2002. But it seems he knew it was coming, possibly following threats from bookies. The evidence lies in a letter, one of several that was to form part of the second King Commission probe into match-fixing. According to the letter, Cronje had admitted that bookmakers had forced him, in his playing days, to rethink his role as South African captain and the stage had been reached where he needed to rethink his goals as well as long-term career. John Bacon, secretary of the King Commission — scrapped in February 2001 through political pressure because of the fear it would implicate certain world cricket administrators — has confirmed that the letter is one of several from Cronje in the commission’s now closed files. This links up with what appeared earlier this year in the biography of Ali Bacher, managing director of the United Cricket Board at the time of the match-fixing scandal. In the book Ali, Bacher claims that Cronje handed the suggested Sri Lanka tour itinerary back to the team’s manager Goolam Rajah with the advice to ‘‘give it to Shaun Pollock as he would then be in charge of the team’’. Rajah, now logistics manager and adviser to South African touring teams, has confirmed the Cronje comment and these have been subsequently supported by Dhammika Ranatunga, the Sri Lankan board’s CEO at the time of the 2000 tour. And it lends weight to comments Cronje made to two close associates in the team, Jonty Rhodes and Allan Donald, during the final days of the India tour in 2000. He was, he reportedly told them, ‘‘under great pressure and needed a break as a player and captain’’. Neither have since denied that he made the comment. It’s widely known that Cronje had wanted out of the captaincy after World Cup 1999 when negotiating and accepting with Glamorgan the role of coach for the 2000 season. He needed a break from the pressures of the game at international level as ‘‘outside forces and business contacts are making it hard for me to concentrate on the needs of the team and my own game’’. This was in reference to the contacts made by Indian bookies who, finding his information unreliable helped to expose him by tipping of the New Delhi police. This has been strongly denied by K K Paul who headed the CBI investigation.
