HANSIE CRONJE

'Wessel Johannes "Hansie" Cronje' ('KRON-year') (September 25, 1969 - June 1, 2002) was a South African cricketer and captain of the South African national cricket team in the 1990s. He was voted the 11th greatest South African in 2004 despite having been banned for life from professional cricket for his role in a match-fixing scandal.

Contents

Life and career

Match fixing

Plane crash

Trivia

See also

References

External links

Life and career

Born in Bloemfontein, Cronje matriculated in 1987 from the prestigious Grey College school in Bloemfontein. An excellent all round sportsman, he represented the then Orange Free State in cricket and rugby at schools level. He made his first-class debut playing for Orange Free State against Transvaal at Johannesburg in January 1988 at the age of 18. In the following season he was a regular appearing in all eight Currie Cup matches plus being part of the Benson and Hedges Series winning team, scoring 73 as an opener in the final. In 1989/90 despite playing all the Currie Cup matches he failed to make a century and averaged only 19.76 however in one-day games he averaged 60.12. During that season he scored his maiden century for South African Universities against Mike Gatting's rebels ^[1].
Despite having just turned 21 Cronje was made captain of Orange Free State for the 1990/1 season. He scored his maiden century for them against Natal in December 1990, and finished the season with another century and a total of 715 runs at 39.72. That season he also scored 159
★ in a 40-over match against Griqualand West.
Cronje's form in 1991/2 was impressive especially in the one-day format where he averaged 61.40. He earned an international call up for the 1992 World Cup, making his One-Day International debut against Australia at Sydney. During the tournament he played in eight of the teams nine games, averaging 34.00 with the bat while his medium pace was used bowling 20 overs.
After the World Cup Cronje was part of the tour to the West Indies he featured in the three ODI’s and in the Test match at Bridgetown that followed he made his Test debut, this was South Africa first Test since readmission and they came close to beating strong West Indian side, going into the final day at 122/2 chasing 200 they collapsed to 148.
India toured South Africa in 1992/3. In the one-day series Cronje managed just one fifty but with the ball he was economical and took his career best figures of 5/32, becoming the second South African to take 5 wickets in an ODI ^[2]. In the Test series that followed he scored his maiden test century, 135 off 411 balls, after coming in at 0-1 in the second over he was last man out, after eight and three-quarter hours, in a total of 275. This contributed to South Africa's first Test win since readmission. In the rest of the season he captained Orange Free State to the Castle Cup/Total Power Series double. At the end of the season in a triangular tournament with Pakistan and West Indies he scored 81 off 70 balls against Pakistan.
In South Africa's next Test series against Sri Lanka Cronje scored his second Test century, 122 in the second Test in Colombo, the victory margin of an innings and 208 runs is a South African record. He finished the series with 237 runs at 59.25 after scoring 73
★ in the drawn third Test.
In 1993/4 there was another Castle Cup/Total Power Series double for Orange Free State. In international cricket he was named as vice-captain for the tour of Australia despite being the youngest member of the squad. In the first ODI of the triangular tournament with New Zealand and Australia he guided South Africa to victory against Australia with 91
★ which won him the man of the match award. He scored 71 in a rain affected first Test at Melbourne before a tense second Test that South Africa won by 5 runs, an injury to captain Kepler Wessels meant Cronje was captain for the final day of the match. Between the second and third Tests the one-day tournament continued, now with Cronje as captain, South Africa made the final series but lost it 2-1 to Australia. He became South Africa's second-youngest Test captain, after Murray Bisset in 1898-99, when he led the team for the third Test at Adelaide but it was an unsuccessful start to his captaincy career as the series was squared.
In February 1994 there was the return series as Australia toured South Africa. Cronje started the ODI series with scores of 112, 97, 45 and 50
★ and when Australia played Orange Free State in there final match before the first Test, Cronje hit 251 off 306 balls, 200 of these came on the final day in which 294 runs were added, despite this Orange Free State lost the match. In the first Test at Johannesburg he added another century as South Africa won by 197 runs. This innings was the the end of a 14 day period in which he'd scored 721 runs against the Aussies. However he failed to reach fifty in the next two Tests and four ODIs as both series were drawn.
In 1994 he accidentally hit and killed a black girl with his car after she had run out in front of him. He had been driving through a village in northern Natal and after hitting her he stopped and attempted to assist the girl. The villagers however, some with knives, were hostile and he was forced to leave ^[3].
There was another drawn series when South Africa toured England in 1994, Cronje scoring just one century on the whole tour and scored only 90 runs in the three Test series. In October 1994, South Africa again came up against Australia, in a triangular one-day series also featuring Pakistan, Cronje scored 354 runs at an average of 88.50 but despite this South Africa lost all their matches ^[4]. This series was Bob Woolmer's first series as coach and Kepler Wessels' last as captain. Cronje who'd previously been vice-captain was named as captain for the Test series with New Zealand in 1994/5.
South Africa lost the first Test in Johannesburg but before the second Test the two teams plus Pakistan and Sri Lanka competed for the Mandela Trophy, New Zealand failed to gain a win in the six match round robin stage while South Africa beat Pakistan in the final. This changed the momentum as South Africa secured wins in Durban and Cape Town, where Cronje scored his fourth Test century, he was the first captain since W. G. Grace to win a three-match rubber after being one down. In early 1995 South Africa won one-off Tests against both Pakistan and New Zealand, in Auckland Cronje scored the only century of the match before a final day declaration left his bowlers just enough time to dismiss the Kiwis.
In 1995 Cronje appeared for Leicestershire where he scored 1301 runs at 52.04 finishing the season as the county's leading scorer.
In 1997, Cronje played for Ireland as an overseas player in the Benson and Hedges Cup and helped them to a 46-run win over Middlesex by scoring 94 not out and taking three wickets ^[5]. This was Ireland's first ever win against English county opposition ^[6]. Later in the same competition he scored 85 and took 1 wicket against Glamorgan ^[7].
Cronje was also involved in a ball tampering incident in December 1997 in Sydney in Game 1 of the Carlton & United Series, where police were pacifying the crowd after Pat Symcox had missiles thrown at him. Cronje thought the coast was clear to step on and drive his spikes into the ball, but he was caught by a Channel 9 (Australian TV Station, covering the game) camera. For the record, South Africa won the game and Symcox got the Man of the Match award for sinking Australia with 4-24 from his off-spin bowling. Not a popular man with most Aussie cricket fans, he was a man they loved to hate and was booed on the field in the 1997/98 Boxing Day Test at the MCG.
Under Cronje's captaincy South Africa won 27 Tests and lost 11. He captained them in a record number of Tests and to a record number of victories ^[8]. He captained the One-Day International team to 99 wins out of 138 matches with one tied match and three no results. Again he holds the South African record for matches captained in and matches won as captain^[9]. His 99 wins as captain makes him the third most successful captain worldwide in terms of matches won, behind Ricky Ponting and Allan Border, and in terms of percentage of wins (73.70), behind Ponting and Clive Lloyd ^[10]. Between September 1993 and March 2000 he played in 162 consecutive ODI's a South African record ^[11].
Cronje's father Ewie played for Orange Free State in the 1960s, Hansie's older brother Frans also played first-class cricket.

Match fixing

In April 2000, Cronje confessed to being involved with the largest match fixing scandal in the game of cricket, receiving gifts and money from bookmakers to fix the results of games.
One particular incident which came to light during the King commission was when he succeeded in persuading Herschelle Gibbs and Henry Williams (a seam bowler) to join him in fixing a One-Day International at Nagpur in India. Gibbs was supposed to score fewer than 20 runs and Williams was supposed to concede more than 50 runs. When this information came to light both players were suspended from playing international cricket for 6 months ^[12].
Convicted by the King Commission, Cronje was banned from playing or coaching cricket for life.

Plane crash

On 1 June 2002 Cronje missed a scheduled flight home from Bloemfontein to George and instead hitched a ride as the only passenger on a cargo flight in a Hawker Siddeley 748 turboprop aircraft. Near George airport, the pilots lost visibility in cloud, and were unable to land, partly due to unserviceable navigational equipment. While circling, the plane crashed into the Outeniqua mountains northeast of the airport. Cronje, aged 32, and the two pilots were killed instantly.
In August 2006 an inquest into the plane crash by South Africa's High Court started ^[13] - the inquest reached the conclusion that "the death of the deceased Wessel Johannes (Hansie) Cronje was brought about by an act or omission prima facie amounting to an offence on the part of pilots." ^[14]
However, theories that Cronje was murdered - on the orders of a cricket betting syndicate - have flourished since his death, and were most recently re-floated by former Nottinghamshire coach Clive Rice in the wake of the death of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer in March 2007 ^[15].

Trivia

Following the introduction of shirt numbers in cricket, Cronje usually wore the number "5" on his back. Currently the number "5" is not worn by other South African players as a mark of respect. Some have worn "05" or "5+0", but not "5" on its own ^[16].

See also

★ Declaration and forfeiture - Cronje was the only Test captain to ever forfeit an innings

★ List of South Africans - voted 11 in the SABC3's Great South Africans

★ List of people who died in aviation-related incidents

★ List of cricketers banned for match fixing

References

1. South African Universities v England XI 1989/90 Scorecard
2. South Africa vs India 1st ODI 1992/3 Match Report
3. Obituary: Hansie Cronje
4. Batting Averages for South Africa, Wills Triangular Series 1994/95
5. Ireland v Middlesex, Benson & Hedges Cup, 1997 Scorecard
6. Ireland v Middlesex, Benson & Hedges Cup, 1997 Match Report
7. Glamorgan v Ireland, Benson & Hedges Cup, 1997 Scorecard
8. Tests - Most matches as captain (South Africa)
9. ODIs - Most matches as captain (South Africa)
10. ODIs - Most matches as captain
11. ODIs - Most consecutive matches for a team
12. 'Cronjegate': A timeline
13. Cronje inquest opens
14. Pilot error caused Cronje crash
15. Did a cricketer kill Woolmer?
16.
Collingwood's rare honour, and 551 and losing

External links

★ Match fixing scandal

★ Cronje Sacked

★ Hansie Cronje killed in a plane crash