Cronje appeal verdict likely in a fortnight
Fakir Hassen,
Indo-Asian News Service
Disgraced former South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje will know his fate in a fortnight when a judge here is to rule on his appeal against a life ban from the game.
The United Cricket Board of South Africa (UCBSA) banned Cronje after his
confessions at the King Commission into cricket match-fixing last year.
He admitted to having accepted large sums of money and gifts from Indian and
South African bookmakers, throwing world cricket into its deepest crisis
ever as the International Cricket Council (ICC) and national cricket
authorities in several countries launched their own investigations.
The crisis occurred after Indian police made public telephonic conversations
apparently between Cronje and an Indian bookmaker, which they had come
across during routine investigations.
Cronje came under severe fire from UCBSA counsel Wim Trengrove over the past
two days. Trengrove called him "a self-confessed cheat" who was trying to
get back into the corridors of the UCBSA.
"What he does not understand is that cheats do not belong in the cricket
establishment and they are not entitled to participate in the activities of
the UCBSA and its affiliates," Trengrove said.
Cronje's lawyers are asking for the ban to be repealed so he can earn a
living from the only thing he knows -- cricket. The ban does not permit him
to work even as a commentator or writer, or to coach.
Cronje's advocate, Malcolm Wallace, argued that his client was not trying to
return to professional cricket as a career with the rescinding of the ban.
Cronje said in a statement to the court that the UCBSA was doing everything
in its power to effect his total exclusion from cricket in South Africa and
the rest of the world, even at the social and recreational levels, besides
coaching, management or media.
He said he did not dispute at all the fact that the UCBSA had good reason to
end its association with him. He acknowledged, as "a matter of public
notoriety", that he had wrongly accepted money from bookmakers and therefore
understood that the board was within its rights to refuse to employ him as a
cricketer.
But Cronje added that the UCBSA did not have any regulatory powers over his
life beyond regulating his ability to play cricket.
He said he was keen to make amends and the best way to do that was to use
the skills, expertise and knowledge he had acquired in a decade of playing
in the national side to help promote the game through coaching and
development programmes.
Trengrove argued that Cronje's motivation for the application was not to
make amends and help underprivileged children but to make money from the
game again. He said Cronje had corrupted cricket and had defrauded his
employer (the UCBSA) and all the people who had invested their time and
money in the game.
Pretoria High Court Judge Frank Kirk-Cohen has reserved judgement in the
case.
Cronje is also facing possible criminal prosecution under tax evasion and
currency control laws related to his keeping money received from bookmakers
in his home without declaring it.
The Betting Scandal: Complete coverage
--Indo-Asian News Service
Mail Cricket Editor
