A sense of perspective

June 1, 2002 by neil manthorp

Neil Man­thorp — 01/06/2002

Craig Matthews:

“It puts every­thing into per­spec­tive, does­n’t it? At times like this we can look around and ask, tru­ly, how impor­tant was the match-fix­ing scan­dal? Of course it dam­aged the game and it was wrong, but I’ll judge him by what he was to me — a mate and a great cricketer.

“The words ‘match-fix­ing’ and ‘Han­sie Cron­je’ will always be asso­ci­at­ed and that’s under­stand­able but he was about far more than that. He actu­al­ly per­suad­ed me that I was good enough to play inter­na­tion­al crick­et and that changed my life.

“The thing that gets to me more than just about any­thing is the pain and hurt that the Cron­je fam­i­ly has had to endure over the last two years. Can any fam­i­ly be expect­ed to go through that?”

Gary Kirsten:

“Han­sie was a friend and a great leader, He was an inspi­ra­tion to me when I first came into the nation­al team and he gave me con­fi­dence. It was impos­si­ble not to respect him.

“Even when things turned bad for him with the scan­dal it did­n’t change cer­tain things, like the fact that he was a great crick­eter, a great per­former and a great on-field leader of his country.

“I have no doubt that he would have made a suc­cess­ful come­back with his per­son­al life and busi­ness career out­side of crick­et because that was the sort of per­son he was. He was deter­mined and he was an achiever.

Kepler Wes­sels, the only man whose lead­er­ship Cron­je played under in the nation­al team, said he was con­vinced Cron­je was head­ing for brighter times after two years of unhappiness.

“I actu­al­ly bumped into him last week for the first time in a long time and I gained a very clear impres­sion of a man deter­mined to cre­ate a new niche for him­self in society.

“He knew that things obvi­ous­ly would not be the same with regards to crick­et but he was build­ing a new life out­side the game and he came across as pos­i­tive and determined.

“As a cap­tain I will nev­er for­get the things he brought to the team, most mem­o­rably his enthu­si­asm and his work eth­ic, and when he took over as a cap­tain he con­tin­ued those things. If he had still been in charge of the nation­al team today it would not be in the mess it cur­rent­ly is.”

Hen­ry Williams: “He was the best ambas­sador for South Africa as a cap­tain and a per­son. Despite what hap­pened I still believe he was the best man we had. I spoke to him a cou­ple of times after the match fix­ing inci­dent and I said to him I for­give you it hap­pened and we can go on with our lives now.

“Thank God we made up and for­gave each oth­er. I feel bad and sad about what’s hap­pened but when it’s your time it’s your time.