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Change Your Life! |
Hansie Cronje scandal dominates British papers - front and back |
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News |
April 13, 2000
South African officials on Tuesday kicked national captain Cronje off the team after he was implicated in a match-fixing scandal. Indian police have charged Cronje and three other South African players. "Face of Shame," said a headline in best-selling daily The Sun above a photo of Cronje. "Money-grabber goes from hero to zero in 100 hours." The Daily Telegraph said he had "betrayed the game," while The Times said cricket will struggle to restore credibility: "Cronje and cricket stare into abyss." Writing in the Daily Mail, former England manager Ray Illingworth said the Cronje affair "has destroyed my faith in human nature. For a man so devoted to cricket to succumb to such a temptation is very sad." "The game that once stood for fair play has lost its good name," he said. Illingworth said he was approached about deliberately losing a World Cup game in 1996 against Pakistan in Karachi. The offer - no sum was mentioned by the Pakistani caller - was made by phone to his hotel room, and he reported it the following day to the match umpire. "Nowadays, though, there are so many offers floating around in that part of the world - hundreds and thousands of pounds are involved - that it doesn't surprise me when somebody is tempted," he said. Former South African skipper Kepler Wessels, Cronje's predecessor, said he fears worse still. "I fear the deeper they dig, the worse it will get," he wrote in The Daily Telegraph. "The damage is irreparable." Australian cricket captain Steve Waugh said he wonders how far corruption has spread. "Has it just recently been happening? That's the big question," said Waugh, whose twin brother Mark and spin bowler Shane Warne were mired in controversy last year after admitting they took money in India to provide weather and pitch information to bookmakers. "Now there are question marks over nearly every game that's been played over the past decade," he added. The Times partly blamed the fact that betting on cricket is illegal in India, spawning powerful underground betting syndicates. "If betting were allowed in the open, bribery would be less attractive," it said. "Since the popularization of spread betting, whereby anyone may make any number of other side bets on events at any stage of a match, the possibilities for corruption have become far greater. A player may not be able to throw a match, even with the help of a colleague or two, but he can make sure that he does not score more than 30, or whatever the briber might require." |
