Cricket: Cronje's secrets 'went to the grave'

Former New Zealand captain Ken Rutherford believes Hansie Cronje may have taken more match-fixing secrets to his grave.

Rutherford, who played cricket in South Africa for several years, said the revelations at the King Commission in 2000 touched only the surface.

The disgraced former South African skipper died in a plane crash in South Africa at the weekend.

"I see the judge was not satisfied with all his answers at the tribunal, but that's only conjecture now," Rutherford said.

Rutherford was leading New Zealand when Cronje was elevated to the Proteas captaincy in late 1994.

"He was a very good cricketer and a fine all-rounder.

"It's just a bit of a shame his ability as a player will forever be tainted by the match-fixing scandal."

Rutherford said that whenever he encountered Cronje in captaincy exchanges, the South African was a no-nonsense competitor on the field, but quite personable off it.

Rutherford, who returned to New Zealand from South Africa last year, said Cronje's leadership qualities had helped to unite the team and country in the post-apartheid era when cricket came out of sporting isolation.

But Rutherford said people who knew Cronje well in the Gauteng [Transvaal] region where Rutherford played, believed the South African captain to be very money oriented.

"Clearly money meant a lot to him and he was apparently involved with money and deals, stocks and shares, and the like."

Rutherford believes Cronje may have initially naively started supplying information to bookmakers about team composition and weather and pitch conditions before things became even more serious and he started trying to bribe team-mates to under-perform.

"From what I understand, I don't know that he knew much initially about how bookies work," said Rutherford, who is employed by the New Zealand TAB and has always been a keen punter.

"But I think he would have been the first to acknowledge that he blew it.

"I know he was hoping that over time the mood would become more conciliatory toward him and he could look to getting back to the game in some form. I believe he wanted to put something back."

Rutherford recalled that the Dutch Reform Church gave Cronje unwavering support despite his misdemeanours and he was gaining backing for readmission to the sport that banned him.

Rutherford felt great sympathy for Cronje's father and brother who "suffered tremendously" as Hansie went to court, and would suffer even more now.

"His father was a decent bloke whom I met a few times and his brother did missionary work in other parts of Africa. They were good people."

Rutherford said Proteas such as Shaun Pollock, who replaced Cronje as captain, had sought his advice on cricketing matters because of his captaincy skills.

South African newspapers paid tribute to Cronje, saying his death ended one of the saddest sagas in the history of South African sport.

"Never before in this country had a 'hero-to-zero' tale of such mammoth proportions gripped most of our communities," the Johannesburg-based Independent said in an editorial.

Most of the country's press ran banner headlines on the crash.

"Hansie's death flight" read the front page of the Afrikaans paper Rapport, which filled six pages with pictures and tributes.

The Independent editorial said: "He was the hero of small boys from townships to golf estates, of girls and mothers from the boreholes to the beauty salons.

"Hansie let us down, but not as badly as he did himself. He paid dearly for his dishonesty.

"Now he has lost the chance to fully redeem himself, as surely he would have done in time."

- AGENCIES