Sports betting and corruption: How to preserve the - SportAccord

Sports betting and corruption: How to preserve the integrity of sport
THE HANSIE CRONJE AFFAIR (2000)
Or how cricket, too, was undermined by fraud
On 7 April 2000, the police in New Delhi (India) revealed that they were in
possession of a recording of a tapped telephone conversation between
Hansie Cronje, the Captain of the South African cricket team, and Sanjay
Chawla, an illicit gambler in India, in which the two individuals discussed
manipulating matches. Three other South African players were mentioned: Herschelle Gibbs, Nicky
Boje and Pieter Strydom. The following day, the South African Federation denied any match fixing,
but suspended Cronje after he admitted to a fellow player that he had “not been entirely honest.”
The King Commission was set up by the South African Cricket Federation in June 2000 to carry out
an inquiry. Gibbs very quickly admitted that Cronje had offered him $15,000 to score fewer than 20
runs in a match in India in 2000, and that Henry Williams, another player, had been promised the same
amount to concede more than 50 runs from his bowling. Gibbs scored 74 runs and Williams retired
hurt. Neither of them received any money.
One week after the revelations by Gibbs, Cronje said he had received $140,000 to try to corrupt his
two teammates and admitted his relationship with a syndicate of illegal gamblers in India. He also
admitted having sold strategic information and having agreed to forfeit an innings in a match against
England in 2000 that could no longer influence the final outcome of the Test Series 6 .
In August 2000, Gibbs and Williams received six-month suspensions for having failed to alert the
authorities, and in October 2000, Cronje was suspended for life from any activity linked to
professional cricket. He died in a plane accident two years later, giving rise to all sorts of theories
about the possible involvement of illegal betting circles in his death.
Several cases of fraud had already shaken the cricket world by the end of the 1990s. In 1998 it was
discovered that the Australian Federation had secretly suspended two players in 1995 for passing
information to Sri Lankan gamblers. A number of players had also revealed instances of match fixing,
but the enquiries had come to nothing.
The Cronje affair aroused concern in the International Cricket Council, which decided to set up an
anti-corruption unit consisting of policemen with genuine investigative resources.
6 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/7765224/How-Hansie-Cronje-became-most-infamous-villain-in-
crickets-fixing-scandals.html
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