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Bacher admits knowing about 1996 offer

United Cricket Board of South Africa boss Ali Bacher has admitted that former captain Hansie Cronje had told him about an offer to throw a match in India in 1996, a report said Saturday.

Bacher said in his testimony last week to the King Commission into corruption that he only became aware of the offer, which was rejected, in April this year.

Cronje, sacked in April after admitting to taking money from gamblers, told the commission Friday that he had told Bacher several times about the offer to throw a one-day match against India.

Bacher, the managing director of the UCBSA, has now admitted to the Citizen newspaper that Cronje had told him about the offer, but said he had not done anything about it.

"I did engage in a fleeting conversation with Hansie which probably lasted no more than five to 10 seconds," Bacher told the newspaper from London, where he is attending the International Cricket Council meeting.

"There was, however, no mention of countries or amounts involved at any stage," he said.

"I acknowledged, in hindsight, that I should maybe have pursued the matter, but at the time, that was totally unthinkable."

Former coach Bob Woolmer said in a column last week in the Daily Telegraph newspaper in Britain that he had also told Bacher about the offer, according to reports in Johannesburg.

South African cricketing officials were apparently taken by surprise when Cronje admitted to having accepted at least 140,000 dollars from gamblers.

He has also confessed to approaching three other South African players with bribes to play badly.

One of the amounts he received was more than 30,000 dollars from an Indian gambler in 1996 for information received India's tour of South Africa in 1996/97.

The King Commission was set up to investigate Cronje's confessions and other claims of corruption in South African cricket. It has to present an interim report to the government on June 30.