Hussain gives clean chit to England-South Africa Test

By Ted Corbett

LONDON, APRIL 16. Nasser Hussain, the England captain, today said he was ``totally satisfied that there was nothing improper about the circumstances that led to our dramatic win'' in the fifth and final Test against South Africa at Centurion Park in January. The match is to be probed following the confession that Hansie Cronje, the South African captain took money from a local bookmaker at about that time.

Nevertheless Hussain will be asked to give evidence at the forthcoming inquiry into cricket's gravest problem now known around the world as Cronjegate and in South Africa rumours persist that a local bookmaker, who stood to make a heavy loss if the game finished as a draw, paid for a result. England won in the final over but for all the thrilling finish I - and many others - detested the feeling that the game was contrived. It may have been cricket; but it was never a Test.

The Sunday newpapers in this country, with a five days to organise coverage from South Africa, are full of the story today. There is a suggestion in more than one paper that three matches involving England will be investigated and another story from the Test all-rounder Chris Lewis about the attempt to bribe England last summer.

The News of the World, whose dips into the sleeziest scandals bring a circulation of six million copies a week, splashes the two stories on its front page where it alleges that three prominent England players are involved, although it cannot persuade Lewis to divulge their names. He says his life is in danger if he gives away their identity but adds that they are three players who have been regulars in the last four years. That reduces the list considerably since commanding a place in the England team recently has been a trick beyond many of its players. If it is true, the highest-paid and best known players in the land must be guilty.

The three games are the final Test at Centurion, the final Test of the home series against South Africa in 1998 at Headingley when England won in the midst of umpiring controversy and England's defeat by India at Edgbaston in the World Cup. Lewis, a religious man, says piously that he hopes that if the players are guilty they will confess. There is no sign so far of any player admitting his guilt.

Scotland Yard, the name by which England's elite police have always been known, has been in touch with the Indian police, says the NOW story. It quotes an unnamed officer as saying that millions of pounds are involved. ``We are stunned to learn that the gang has its claws into the game all over the world,'' the anonymous source adds.

Senior officials at the England and Wales Cricket Board say they know nothing of English players dabbling in gambling and the number of approaches to England players is small. Scotland Yard has been investigating since last summer when Lewis first claimed that he had been offered œ 300,000 to fix a Test against New Zealand.

The New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming reported to the International Cricket Council that he was offered a similar amount. Tim Lamb, chief executive of the ECB made it clear to me last week that he had no further knowledge of their progress. ``We are as bewildered as the rest of you by the events in South Africa,'' he said.

The most famous quote on the subject now years old is that ``Only Australia, England and South Africa cannot be got at'' and while that makes one ask what, for instance, the West Indies and Zimbabwe have been up to, it is also now clearly untrue. Australia's Shane Warne and Mark Waugh have been involved, although to what degree is still uncertain, and Hansie Cronje's fall from grace puts an end to the case for South Africa. So will there be a day when an England player has to admit to a contact with a bookmaker. It is difficult to say ``never'' to that question.

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