Former South Africa batsman Kepler Wessels has said Hansie Cronje, the former Proteas skipper, had a role to play in match-fixing much before he got caught in 2000, and later was handed a ban worth lifetime.
He also admitted to taking bribes from bookmakers to influence matches since 1996.
As per Australia’s Herald Sun website, Wessels was due to reveal everything in an interview with Fox Sports Cricket’s Legend. He said during the 1994 triangular series, which included Australia and Pakistan apart from South Africa, came a moment when few of Cronje’s comments raised concerns and made him doubt the genuity of the game.
“Hansie made a few comments during the last couple of games that led me to believe that things weren’t 100 percent right. We picked up a wicket and we were in the huddle and Pakistan were 120/4 or something. And (Cronje) came into the huddle and said ‘don’t worry about this. We’re going to win this one because they’re not trying to win it.”
During the game, the collapse of 101 for two to 178 all out made him wonder about what is going on is something strange and that it shouldn’t happen. Wessels said he remembers three run-outs happening, all from Jonty Rhodes, which eventually turned the game on their head.
Cronje, who was handed over the captaincy for the first time in the series, was making the choices, the wrong ones, maybe.
Hansie Cronje died in an airplane crash in 2002.