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Gibbs says he accepted Cronje's offer

South Africa cricketer Herschelle Gibbs on Thursday told the Judge Edwin King Commission inquiring into match-fixing that he had agreed to his captain Hansie Cronje's offer of $15,000 to get out for less than 20 runs while on the tour of India earlier this year.

Herschelle Gibbs during the first sitting of the King Commission in Cape Town.[AFP Photo]

In his testimony to the commission, Gibbs said he went on to score 74 runs off 53 balls and was not paid.

"Hansie appeared in my room with a big smile on his face saying that someone was prepared to offer me $15,000 for scoring less than 20. I thought of my mother - - my parents were getting divorced, my father had a part-time job and I would have to look after my mother - - so I said, 'yes'.

"Hansie said the same bloke would give (room mate) Henry (Williams) $15,000 if he went for not less than 50 runs in his bowling. The team was to get less than 270," he said.

Gibbs said the targets that were set in the conversation in a hotel in Nagpur before the fifth one-day international between India and South Africa were not met, as the team scored more than 300 runs.

Meanwhile, the commission was told that Cronje was tearful and appeared ready to hand himself over to the police after he confessed that he had received money from a businessman.

Rory Steyn, a security consultant to the United Cricket Board of South Africa and a former member of President Nelson Mandela's protection unit, gave the inquiry dramatic evidence of a confession by Cronje in the early hours of April 11, the day he was sacked as captain.

Steyn, who was staying in the same hotel as the South African team before a match against Australia in Durban, said Cronje telephoned him and asked him to come to his room in the early hours of April 11.

"He handed me a statement which I assumed to be in his handwriting. He said I may have guessed that he had not been entirely honest and that some of what was in the media was true. He had decided to write a statement and come clean."

Steyn said Cronje was in a poor emotional state. "His eyes were wide open and he was on the verge of tears. He must have broken down on two or three occasions."

Steyn said Cronje was fully clothed and his bags were packed.

"I got the impression he thought I was still a serving police officer and that he was handing himself over to the police."

The statement included an admission by Cronje that he had accepted money from a Mohammad Cassim, who he knew as Hameed, which he had been handed before South Africa's one-day match against Zimbabwe in Johannesburg in January.

While Steyn was in the room, Cronje crossed out an estimate of the amount of money he received from Cassim.

Originally Cronje had written "twenty to twenty-five thousand" US dollars and he changed it to "ten to fifteen thousand."

Cronje told Steyn that when he later led the team on a tour of India he had been "constantly harassed" by Cassim and Sanjeev Chowla, the man whose conversations with Cronje had been taped by New Delhi police and released in transcript form to the media.

"Hansie told me this harrassment was up to 20 times a day."

Steyn said Cronje told him he had decided to confess for three reasons.

"He said he couldnt live with the lies, they were eating him up. His family were under immense pressure and it was not fair to them.

"The players mentioned in the transcript were innocent and he wanted to clear their name."

Herschelle Gibbs, one of the players mentioned on the transcript, was in the gallery while Steyn testified.

Earlier, further evidence was given about an alleged offer to the South African team to lose a game in Bombay, in December 1996.

Offspinner Derek Crookes said that Cronje had told the players that if they accepted an offer of 250,000 dollars, no-one else should be told, including the players' wives. Crookes claimed there were two meetings, while fellow player Pat Symcox said Wednesday there had been one.

Crookes also said he had been approached by Cronje on a flight to Bombay the previous day and gained the impression that the former captain had already spoken to several other players.

Crookes said he and Andrew Hudson, his roommate in Bombay, were at the forefront of opposition to accepting the offer.

"I thought I was the first to stand up in the meeting but it may have been Andrew," said Crookes.

"I thought it was immoral, the wrong thing to do and could jeopardise my career."

Cronje had not offered an opinion in the meeting whether the players should accept or reject the offer.

The captain had said that if the offer was accepted, no-one should be told.

"It was one of the reasons why I stood up. I had just got married and wasn't prepared to hide anything from my wife," said Crookes.

Referring to the conversation on the flight to Bombay, Crookes said his first reaction was disbelief. "I asked him if he was joking. He said I should think about it overnight."

Batsman Daryll Cullinan said he thought Cronje's offer to the team was a "stroke of genius" in that it made the team united in their opposition to any involvement with match-fixing. Cullinan said he would stand by Cronje until his former captain had given his side of the story.

Agencies