Chesterfield Special: A Trojan horse: ghosts of Cronje and Malik Stalking Pakistan

Sreelata YellamrazuAug 11 2009

by Trevor Chesterfield

As a matter of routine, dates have a habit of reminding us of some of the more traumatic moments that may affect our lives.

pakistan out

September 1, 1939 and the start of the catastrophic World War 2 is one; May 25 1965, surviving an attack in a swamp in the Mekong Delta after being mistaken for Vietcong; September 11, 2001 when the so-called American dream was shattered by the aircraft flying into the twin World Trade Centre towers, New York; as is Lahore and March 3 2009, when the terrorists launched an attack on the Sri Lanka team bus and van carrying match officials.

For South Africa in modern times, first it was February 17 1992, a white minority nation voting “yes” to end years of racist oppression and eschewing the horrendous legislated apartheid system. There was May 10, 1994 and the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as the first South African president elected by universal suffrage.

Then there was April 7, 2000. It was the day Hansie Cronje, depending on your allegiance, was unmasked as a match-fixer by Indian police: an event with its ghost that has haunted the game with regular reminders of how vulnerable are players to the Trojan horse efforts by glib-tongued bookies and their pimps, masquerading as “supporters” designed to connive players into committing malpractices for a few pieces of silver.

It was the day also that the International Cricket Council were finally faced with the evidence they had long been trying to hide and dupe themselves into believing it didn’t happen. No one in South Africa wanted to believe it either. Only the reverberations from that revelation in New Delhi that early autumn day are still being felt within the game.

Former Pakistan captain, Rashid Latif, was quite open about it when he accused former Pakistan captain Salim Malik of being involved in throwing games in Zimbabwe in 1995. This had been after the tour of South Africa, and where at Newlands at the start of the three-legged Mandela Cup final on January 10, 1995, Malik had asked Cronje, ‘Did John call you?’

A shame-faced Cronje later told the King Commission into match-fixing scandal that he had “Nodded with some embarrassment at the question”. This is the nice guy of the maudlin “Hansie and the Boys” image; the white knight who could do no wrong in the eyes of the many middle-aged Afrikaans women, even after his admission of guilt. It didn’t seem to matter that he was caught with his hand in the till.

Maybe the events of April 9, 2000, when he tried to deny it all and clear his name and asked a pertinent question about the rain-affected Centurion Test, of whether its result may have something to do with the allegations, summarised official establishment view. It was one of shock and horror, of “how could anyone ask such a question.”

Barely forty-eight hours later, Ali Bacher, then managing director of the United Cricket Board (of South Africa) told all who wanted to listen how as a hastily convene media conference “We have been betrayed” he whinged. Yet the pious look on his face two nights earlier suggested there should be no concern. Hansie was clean.

The “betrayed” comment was after the Cronje’s own written confession that he had ‘not been totally honest’; or as the events unfolded that fateful night of April 10 and 11, 2000, the following is taken from the Cronje chapter in the book Cricket Captains of South Africa (2003 revised edition, Chesterfield/McGlew, Zebra Press):

“Twelve weeks later, on a balmy April morning at Kingsmead, South Africa’s efficient and helpful manager, Goolam Raja, asked all who had not been with the side in India, to leave the dressing room. Cronje had admitted, 48 hours after his ‘I have nothing to hide’ claim, to ‘not having been totally honest’. In the early hours of the morning of April 11 he called the team’s security officer, Rory Steyn and handed over the written confession. Raja was summoned to Cronje’s room and Dr Bacher was contacted.”

The ’John’ Malik referred to later turned out to be London-based bookie called Mukesh Gupta, introduced to Cronje in Kanpur during the 1996 Test against India. The game had become booby-trapped from within by the hands of the fifth columnist, Cronje, and it was about to blown apart by the nefarious bookies who lurked in hotel lobbies, corridors, casinos players visited and restaurants.

Since the late 1980s, crooked Indian bookmakers and their nefarious pimps have been pushing their match-fixing drug lure and polluted money like some tasty betel as bait in the hope of cashing in on a player, or players’ weakness to make a deal. To suggest it doesn’t exist is as naïve as saying that the King Commission into Cronje’s match-fixing malpractices didn’t prove anything. Or, how the March 3 Lahore attack on the Sri Lanka players and ICC officials was a figment of our imagination.

While it should be understood that Sri Lanka Cricket’s Interim Committee secretary Nishantha Ranatunga was acting with what he thought was in the best interests of the SLC, the tour and Pakistan team by suggesting “there is no story” he had been going on the assurances the team’s manager, Yawa Saeed there was no truth in the rumour.

Yet, as with Cronje, there was a volte face by the manager as reports emerged that the Pakistan Cricket Board had been in touch with the International Cricket Council over the persistent rumours of bookies attempting to get involved with players.

As did Ali Bacher when protecting Cronje at the beginning over his denials, there are those among us who were close enough to the South African team in 2000 team to know there was a certain truth in the rumours of how certain events took place in various games. Under suspicion in this latest case is the Pakistan innings of 94 on the first day of the second Test at historic Saravanamuttu.

Bookmakers, not just Indians, getting involved in trying to fix results have also plagued other sports.

It is a sad state when a tour and games being played come under suspicion, but reputed news agencies do not file stories about such controversial matters unless there is official reaction to events.

It is only by exposing such issues that the illegal activities of such immoral types and their subtle application of a mental coercive style of thuggery is cornered and they are blacklisted and names placed on a banned list to stop them from entering a country.

Just how serious is the situation is the report from Lahore, and this has been confirmed, the Pakistan Cricket Board have launched their own investigation as well as informing the ICC of their concerns of reports in a Urdu daily, Express.

“The matter was reported to the official of the ICC (International Cricket Council) in Sri Lanka and they took some urgent steps,” the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said in a statement, which says a lot more than any well-meaning denial. If what is being pushed out of Lahore is correct, there is a lot more to the story than initially surfaced in reports, which means to try and hide it is being foolish.

This is more so when the Pakistan team manager, Yawar Saeed, acting on instructions from the PCB, has confirmed the presence of some “unwanted people” who tried to approach players in the team hotel. The story is how those making the approaches were hotel guests and, identified as Indians by the hotel’s housekeeping staff on the same floor where the Pakistan team had their rooms. They wanted to meet the players, inviting them for tea.

Reports from Dambulla confirmed the Pakistan ICC’s anti-corruption unit officer, Lt Col Nur Khawaja had attended games and met players in the hotel outside the town along with Niranjan S Virk, who handles the ACU’s Indian and Sri Lankan matters. This suggests that the reports of the hotel guests masquerading as “cricket supporters” has the ICC worried about such activity at a time when the game has largely cleaned itself of such bandits who would benefit from their notorious activities.

Yet, as with most poisonous caldrons of this nature, it is always bubbling below the surface, as with the actions of terrorist groups who, wanting to subjugate others to their ways, would hit an unsuspecting town, household or group of people who are minding their own business.

The sobering thought here is that despite the ICC efforts, the story of “unwanted people” approaching players shows that the threat of match-fixing and other malpractices within the game is “alive and well” and requires continual vigilance by not only the ICC but also the management of teams as well as administrators. There is though always the Trojan horse, the unknown third force element within the side, the sneaking individual(s) who jokes about such issues as did Cronje, as did Salim Malik as have others and pretend they are not involved.

As with the issue of drugs and taking of steroids, no sport is clean of such damaging issues and until bookies and drug pushers are made and example of and jailed, or flogged in public, the evil existing among those on the sports periphery will remain and doubts about how genuine are those involved exist in the public mind.

Note: Prior permission has sought from the author before republication of the above article.

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