I have no problem with Gary Kirsten unloading on Hansie Cronje. Afterall, Cronje needs to be unloaded on.
GARY KIRSTEN had heard all the rumours about match-fixing but it was a simple conversation about a hamburger that told him something was rotting in his civilised world.
Opening batsman Kirsten was on tour with the South African cricket team in Dubai in 1999 and joined by his wife Deb the same day that Hansie Cronje's wife Bertha flew in from South Africa.
Kirsten made it his business to seek out one of Dubai's finest restaurants to entertain his wife and asked Cronje the next day where he and Bertha had gone.
"He smiled and said they had gone to Burger King," Kirsten wrote in his new autobiography, Gazza.
"I smiled back and shrugged my shoulders. He continued the conversation by asking why I would want to waste money on an expensive restaurant when you could get perfectly adequate food for a quarter of the price in a cheap restaurant.
"It was a small example but it was the moment I knew something had gone very wrong and it disturbed me.
"I couldn't get the idea out of my head he would rather eat a burger than have a very pleasant meal. He was very wealthy but far too driven by it. I think our relationship changed a bit that day."
OK, so what's amiss then?
Well, so far as the story's been carried, Kirsten was tipped to Cronje's misdeeds after an incident with burgers in 1999.
However. It was in 1996-97 that Kirsten first came across Cronje's gambling issues.
Kirsten reveals how Cronje tried to orchestrate cricket's "perfect fix" in a one-day match against India in Mumbai in 1996-97 by calling the full squad to his room - without coach Bob Woolmer - to discuss an offer from a local bookmaker.
"'We have been offered a lot of money to throw a game', he said. I swear you could have heard a pin drop at that moment," Kirsten wrote.
"Nobody moved a muscle. In retrospect I think I had gone into instant shock. Even if I had wanted to speak I would have been unable to. Hansie carried on talking slowly but clearly.
Now, I'm not suggesting Kirsten has done anything wrong, but whether it's down to the journalist, Crash Craddock, or Kirsten, the time-frame is ballsed up.
Didn't Kirsten being asked to fix a match tip him to the problem?
And if the whole South African team was in on an alleged fix back in 1996-97, how come more hasn't been made of it?
One has to ask why they took ten minutes to discuss the pros and cons of it before dismissing the idea. And how do we know that they actually did dismiss the idea?
Posted by: Scott Wickstein | 04 December 2004 at 16:50
Agreed, Wicky. All very dodgy.
But I'll give them the benefit of the doubt unless something else turns up.
Posted by: Tony.T | 04 December 2004 at 17:32
Never give Saffies the benefit. They'll be on welfare for life if you do that.
Posted by: Scott Wickstein | 05 December 2004 at 12:38
Sad thing IMHO is that Cronje seemed like a really decent guy, based on his public persona of course.
Cronje, RIP.
Posted by: SM | 05 December 2004 at 14:23
Oh, I hasten to add that nothing excuses the corruption.
But who am I to judge ... i'll sell out for simulated sex with Cameron Diaz. Or lesser inducements.
Posted by: SM | 05 December 2004 at 14:31
Cheating or not, Wicky, they got rolled like cheap pastry last week.
Dunno about Cronje the guy, SM, but Diaz could roll my pastry any day.
Posted by: Tony.T | 05 December 2004 at 15:22