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Cronje and Rhodes: Best friends in the news

Roshan Paul

Hansie Cronje seems to feel a bit aggrieved about all the flak he's taken. In his interview with Australia's Channel Nine program, Sixty Minutes, the former captain says that he did "exactly" the same as Shane Warne and Mark Waugh did in 1994.

The two Australians got away with just a fine in 1995 after they confessed and that seems to be where the man from Free Orange State feels hard done by. Cronje, who believes he's been punished enough, says he sympathizes with Warne and Waugh and thinks they feel the same about him.

"They've basically confessed to taking money from bookmakers and supplying information," Cronje said. "And it's exactly what I did in a lot of my dealings and it is wrong."

Rubbish! Firstly, neither of the Australians was captain of their team. In fact, at that time, Warne and Waugh were just beginning to establish themselves as major players in the Australian team. Secondly, the Australians didn't try and rope teammates into the sordid deal. Especially teammates that were new to international cricket, slowly cementing their spots in the team and therefore, susceptible to agree to do their captain a favour, perhaps in the hope of winning a few brownie points.

And what makes this assertion from Cronje most outrageous is that he was playing both sides for fools in the hope of making some money for himself. By offering Gibbs and co. less than what the bookmaker had promised, he could then pocket the rest. Despite Gibbs' "steam train" batting that negated the offer, it's the thought that counts, isn't it?

While comments such as these will further exacerbate Cronje's fall from grace in the eyes of cricket fans, I still find myself feeling for him a little bit. Forget about the insomnia, loss of appetite, depression, guilt and suicide contemplation (though I must say his story about his search to find a building tall enough to jump from cracked me up).

More than all of that, I felt some sympathy for the man when he said, "It is such a big temptation as a 26-year-old to be on the road (and) somebody comes to you, offers you $50,000 for a little bit of tiny information which can be helpful to him."

Cronje went on to say, "And all you have to do is supply him that tiny piece of information which is not going to affect the way you play, it's not going to affect the way you captain, it's not going to affect the outcome of the game…it's very, very tempting to say 'that's the information you need'."

I guess that's plausible enough. I can imagine how persistent Indian 'businessmen' can be; and I also know how people from the West find it so hard to say "no". Our brand of straight-forwardness when we want something is just not a part of that culture (in my experience) and I have often noticed that Westerners feel really bad to refuse something when asked point-blank.

I may be clambering atop my high horse here but I do believe that if you are playing for your country, then you shouldn't even consider offers such as the ones Cronje received. Isn't your country's honour worth the extra dollars? I'd like to still think so.

Similarly, the BCCI's announcement that Kapil Dev and Azharuddin will continue in their positions baffles me. Regardless of contracts, when the stakes are so high, surely they must be considered guilty until proven innocent? But of course the BCCI doesn't concern itself too much with winning, does it?

On a related note, Jonty Rhodes, who is on tour in Sri Lanka, claims that he misses his former captain. A report in the Sunday Telegraph quoted Rhodes as saying, "I constantly turn around in the nets looking for him. While Wimbledon was broadcast on TV, we saw a lot of Pete Sampras and I couldn't help thinking that that was the closest I will get to him (Cronje)."

Cronje looks like Sampras? Whether he does or not, the disparity in their current statuses is so great that such a comment definitely qualifies for the height of irony contest!

Rhodes and Cronje have been on over thirty overseas tours together and, according to Rhodes, being on tour without his best friend is like "something has been amputated" from him. However, Rhodes is in a spot of bother himself for his recent comment in a radio interview that Waqar Younis behaved like a proper "poephal".

The United Cricket Board of South Africa (UCBSA) have criticized Rhodes strongly for using that word. According to the Sunday Telegraph, it is an Afrikaans word that ostensibly means idiotic or stupid or clown. Interestingly, the proper English translation is apparently "arsehole"; though this is not mentioned in the newspaper. Therefore, what Rhodes actually meant is open to interpretation.

The Betting Scandal: The full story