Cronje's former teammates to testify before inquiry commission

DURBAN, JUNE 6.Five former teammates of disgraced South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje have indicated they would testify before the commission inquiring into the match-fixing allegations.

Darryl Cullinan, Allan Donald, Derek Crookes, Pat Symcox and former coach Bob Woolmer expressed their desire to testify before the commission which is to start its proceedings on Wednesday.

Symcox and other players have already publicly voiced their suspicions about Cronje's behaviour during matches in India and England. Symcox has said in public Cronje offered the players a lot of money to lose a match in Mumbai and he was one of the players who agreed to accept the money.

But this was rejected after another player pointed out that it was ``immoral'' to be involved in such activities.

Symcox said if the players had accepted Cronje's offer then each one of them would have collected 60,000 rands while Cronje himself would have pocketed more than 1.3 million rands the commission, headed by retired judge Edwin King, was appointed after Cronje admitted he had accepted money from a bookie during the tri-nation series between Zimbabwe, England and South Africa early this year.

Meanwhile, Cronje has become the butt of cartoonists and others who try to make the most of the match-fixing scandal. In one such cartoon, South Africa's famous beer, Hansa Pilsener, is brought into play. Now it is no longer Hansa Pilsener but ``Hansie pilferer''.

AFP adds: Former South African coach Bob Woolmer was added to a list of 43 witnesses who will testify at the King Commission into corruption in South African cricket which starts here on Wednesday.

Woolmer is in South Africa to promote his autobiography and said he was keen to testify, particularly about an offer to the South African team to ``throw'' a match in Mumbai in December 1996.

Cronje will be the key witness in the hearings to be conducted by retired judge Edwin King. But it has not yet been decided when Cronje will appear.

Cronje is the only South African player to have admitted taking money from an Indian bookmaker but he can expect close questioning on the role of other players who were mentioned in a conversation, allegedly with bookmaker Sanjiv Chawla, which was taped by police in New Delhi earlier this year.

Although the King Commission does not have access to the tapes from India, the transcripts released by Indian police when the scandal broke on April 7 were widely reported in South Africa.

Commission secretary John Bacon said he had issued 42 subpoenas. But he cancelled plans to hold a press conference to announce the order of witnesses. ``We now expect to make the announcement at the start of the hearings on Wednesday,'' said Bacon.

He said Woolmer was not among the witnesses originally scheduled to appear because he is based in England, where he is coaching the Warwickshire county team.

``We were not planning to call witnesses from overseas until we had assessed whether this was necessary, based on the testimony from locally-based witnesses. Now that Bob Woolmer is in Cape Town and has volunteered to appear he will be the 43rd person to be subpoenaed.''

Bacon said it was possible that both Nasser Hussain and Andy Flower, the captains of England and Zimbabwe in a triangular limited overs series in South Africa earlier this year, could be called.

Bacon said there had been difficulty in scheduling the appearances of several important witnesses, including Cronje, whose attorney is out of the country until the weekend.

A second attorney acting for the former captain has requested that Cronje be among the last witnesses so he can respond to points made in earlier testimony.

Leading officials from the United Cricket Board of South Africa will only testify in the second week of the inquiry. Their evidence will be led by Jeremy Gauntlett, a senior counsel, who is not available until Monday.

UCB managing director Ali Bacher has said he will reveal the sources for his claim last month that match-fixing had been a fact in international cricket in recent years and had taken place during the 1999 World Cup in England.

All witnesses will submit written statements which will be made public. The witnesses' own legal team will lead questions before State prosecutor Shamila Batohi and judge King will be able to ask further questions.

Judge King has said he will release an interim report by June 30 when the South African team is scheduled to depart on a tour of Sri Lanka.

``It is important that the public must be able to have absolute confidence that what they see happening on the field of play on that tour is a true reflection of the skills of the individuals and the team,'' said Bacher.

The inquiry covers the period between November 1 last year and April 17, and the 1996 tour of India.

- PTI & AFP.

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