22 yards of deceit continues………

Public and media reactions ranged from shock, utter disbelief to revulsion. Strong denials followed from Hansie Cronje with the South African Cricket Board and Hansie’s teammates rallying behind him. Incurable critics and detractors of the Delhi Police continued to be skeptical of the expose despite the transcripts of Hansie’s telephonic intercepts being made public.

At 3 am on April 11, eighteen days after the Crime Branch registered the case against Hansie Cronje and others, Ali Bacher, the South African Cricket Board’s Managing Director, was jolted out of sleep African Board’s Managing Director, was jolted out of sleep by a young man who had been unable to catch a wink of sleep in days, perhaps weeks.

It was the voice of a man who had waged a fierce and lonely battle with himself, before deciding to surrender to his own conscience, a man who would turn the cricketing world topsy-turvy with an intrepid confession that was, at the time, like a bolt of verbal lightning from the blue. Hansie Cronje did not mince words and it did not take long for Ali Bacher to realize their enormous import.

All sleep deserted Bacher as the South African captain told him that ‘he had been dishonest’ in his activities on the last tour of India and confessed to have received huge sums of money from ‘undesirable people’. Hansie’s coming clean not only shut the mouths of Doubting Thomas’s in India but left the cricketing world benumbed. Many a lover of cricket swore not to watch and follow the game ever again. When role models and symbols of utmost rectitude like Hansie Cronje came crashing down, avid followers of the game felt utterly betrayed, disillusioned and dejected. One such person, amongst the millions, was me.

To be continued………..