Cronje Mystery

On what would turn out to be the last daylight of his being, Hansie Cronje was returning late from a trade convention in Swaziland when he became delayed in traffic in the fringes of Johannesburg.

It was Friday twilight, the final day of May 2002, and he was on route to the airport for a planned journey back his home, a plush golf resort at George in the Western Cape.

An essential diversion to the office of Bell Equipment, a global concern specialising in the assembly of earth-moving apparatus, postponed him more.

Hansie had worked there as an account manager for less than a year since being barred from any taking part in international cricket subsequent the match-fixing racket that may yet revisit to threaten the game.

'When he let pass the flight, it was freezing and hailing in Jo'burg,' recalls his ex- secretary at Bell, Pam Jooste. 'It was late in the morning; most of the employees had gone. It was icy cold outside and Hansie asked whether anyone sought russet. He seemed concerned, a little troubled.'

Ever attentive to substitute, especially those that would save or create him money, Cronje had a position pact with the small charter airline AirQuarius which permit him to take a trip as sole passenger on one of its cargo planes.

It would be the last time the pilots would happily agree to the former South African cricket captain using their jump seat.

Though Bell were prepared to pay for a flight every weekend so that he could make the 1,500-mile round trip home to be with his wife, Bertha, Cronje preferred to fly for free with AirQuarius.

The plane crash that finished Cronje's being after 32 eventful years happened in the charcoal hours of an otherwise ordinary Saturday morning, but information of it first reached South Africa's streets at lunchtime on 1 June 2002. By then Hansie's brother, Frans Cronje, and his wife, Rene, went to George to be with his widow Bertha.

The Hawker Siddley 748 freight plane in which Cronje was travelling had dashed into a peak known nearby as Cradock Peak after trailing its way in the hostile Cape climate. Two pilots died alongside Cronje, who was largely unhurt and still tied to his seat when salvage team found the debris strewn across the frozen ridge.

Bertha Cronje had been at George airfield while the night previous to, her looming widowhood becoming more positive with each transient hour. Thus was it ended, the life of a man who found enormity, sold it for a lot of dollars and a pelt coat, and thought a few scheming words (and a veer of lawyers) could buy it back.

In truth, Cronje had little to worry about. The basics of his fortunate life had been laid centuries before, and the mortar that bound them was contradiction and as denial twisted his verve, so it embalmed him in his loss. Even now, the millions whose benchmark he bore snub to accept the truth of his fraud; to them, he relics a great man who 'made a mistake'.

They have no need to pardon him because, as they see it, he did no mistake. Only a few South Africans are ready to disagree openly. Tim Noakes, a sports scientist who worked with the South African cricket team, says: 'People were scared of him. Even these days players who had their occupation lethally affected by Cronje are afraid to say no matter which because they can still be wounded further.'

Cronje's slander sway extends afar the grave? Or might it be that his bereavement was not an disaster?