The year of cricket's lost innocence

Cricket's innocence was shattered in early 2000 when Indian police, monitoring the telephone calls of suspected criminals, picked up the voice of the South African captain Hansie Cronje.

He was talking to Sanjiv "Sanjay" Chawla, a London-based gambler, who was in India during South Africa's tour in February and March 2000.

Disbelief and denial was the dominant reaction in South Africa to a report from New Delhi in April that police had laid charges of criminal conspiracy, fraud and match-fixing against Cronje and three other members of the South African team.

Four days later, however, on the eve of a match against World Cup champions Australia, Cronje confessed he had taken money from Chawla. He was sacked immediately.

By year's end, cricketers from most of the Test nations had been implicated and three of the game's biggest stars -- Cronje, recent Indian captain Mohammad Azharuddin and former Pakistani skipper Salim Malik -- had been banned from the game for life.

A judicial inquiry was set up in South Africa following Cronje's first confession.

At the King Commission's sensational hearings in Cape Town it emerged Cronje's dealings with bookmakers were far more extensive than he first admitted in a 3:00 am telephone call to South African cricket chief Ali Bacher.

It was also revealed dabblings with dirty money had been going on almost from the start of Cronje's captaincy in the 1994/95 season.

Judge Edwin King heard that in December 1996 Cronje put an offer of 200,000 dollars to a team meeting before a one-day match against India in Mumbai.

Several players gave evidence about the meeting, but it was not clearly established how long the discussions lasted or which, if any, players were in favour of taking the money.

What is clear is that it was a meaningless match, a benefit game tacked onto the end of a draining itinerary. It was the sort of match which critics of the proliferation of one-day cricket had long believed left cricketers vulnerable to approaches from the vast illegal bookmaking industry in the Asian sub-continent.

The biggest sensation of the King hearings was when opening batsman Herschelle Gibbs told how Cronje had entered the hotel room Gibbs was sharing with fast bowler Henry Williams on the morning of a one-day international against India in Nagpur on March 19.

"He (Cronje) had this huge grin on his face... Hansie said to me that somebody had ... he'd been on the phone with somebody, or somebody had phoned him and they were prepared to offer myself 15,000 dollars if I made less than 20. At which I said 'yes'."

Williams was also offered 15,000 dollars to concede 50 or more runs in his 10 overs. He also agreed.

Giving evidence, Williams made one of the most telling comments on the degree of influence exerted by Cronje. "I had a lot of respect for the captain, Hansie Cronje. If he can do something like this, why shouldn't I?" he said.

Neither player collected their money. Gibbs hit boundaries off the first two balls he faced and batted "like a steam train" to hammer 74 runs.

South Africa surged past 270, which Cronje had promised Chawla would be their maximum total. During the break between innings, Cronje told the two players the deal was off.

Cronje gave evidence for three days, at the end of which he broke down in tears. He told how he was introduced to Mukesh "MK" Gupta by Azharuddin, then Indian captain, in Kanpur, India, in December 1996 during the final match of a three-Test series.

Gupta gave Cronje "about 30,000 dollars" to speak to his players and ensure that South Africa lost a match which was already almost irrevocably tilted in India's favour.

"I had effectively received money for doing nothing," said Cronje. It was Gupta who made the offer to lose the Mumbai one-day game, and Gupta who paid Cronje 50,000 dollars and possibly another 30,000 dollars for information provided when he visited South Africa for a return series between India and South Africa soon afterwards.

Gupta, a jeweller in New Delhi, was interviewed by India's Central Bureau of Investigation after the Cronje revelations. He revealed details of alleged dealings with Azharuddin and other Indian players Ajay Sharma, Manoj Prabhakar and Ajay Jadeja.

Gupta claimed he had dealings with several foreign players, naming Alec Stewart of England, West Indian Brian Lara, Australians Mark Waugh and Dean Jones, Sri Lanka's Aravinda de Silva and Arjuna Ranatunga, Cronje, New Zealand's Martin Crowe and Salim Malik of Pakistan.

The International Cricket Council set up an anti-corruption unit following the first Cronje revelations, headed by former London police commissioner Sir Paul Condon.

By year's end Condon had travelled to India and claimed to have had worthwhile meetings with Indian investigators.

And Judge King recommended in an interim report that random lie detector tests on cricketers, room searches, undercover agents and telephone call monitoring be used to eliminate attempts at match-fixing -- draconian measures which appalled cricket officials in Australia and England.

Mail Cricket Editor