SA phone-taps, and minister wants meeting

By Paul Martin -- Johannesburg.

South Africa's Sports Minister Ncgonde Balfour says he is inviting all the sports ministers from cricket-Test-match cricket-playing countries to a summit get-together on how to combat corruption in the game.

He was speaking as retired judge-president Edwin King issued a startling second interim report into 'match-fixing and related matters'. Developing ideas first submitted to the commission by members of the public, King supported imposing severe curbs on players and subjecting them to random lie-detector tests.

He wants their cell-phones tapped, the public kept away from their hotels, and the press kept away except when they have explicit permission from the South African UnitedCricket Board (UCB).

King told a news conference he did not consider any of this to be a violation of the players' constitutional rights to freedom of expression. Significantly, he implied (though did not explicitly state) that the UCB had failed to protect the players from corrupting influences, especially when they were away on tour.

The Commissioner used the ringing phrase that "without the confidence of the public,the game is nothing".

It remains to be seen if the public has full confidence, though, in the Commission itself. It has had delay after delay in resuming operations. Now King has had another court reverse (the first being when Live Africa Network News forced him to allow broadcasting of the proceedings).

This time the ex-captain Hansie Cronje has wrung a key concession from the ex-judge.Cronje had been summoned to appear on the 25th January, the day the hearings resume. No-one had apparently bothered to check if Cronje's legal team was available on that date.

Cronje's lawyers said they had other engagements at that time and Cronje could not afford the money to hire a new legal team. he pointed out that he was in effect unemployed.

King then accepted he would not call Cronje until his legal team were available, which is three weeks later than the scheduled starting date. In the interim King will only call witnesses who did not impinge on Cronje's alleged involvement in match-fixing.

It may not be a huge victory, but it means Cronje can remain silent for an extra three weeks.

Does it perhaps show again a degree of incompetence by the King Commission?In the meantime Cronje may still get the UCB to climb down from its life ban on Cronje -- partly because it does not specify just how much distance has to be placed between Cronje and cricket ("can he come and watch a Test-match as a spectator?",asks his lawyer Leslie Sackstein), and partly because the UCB blundered by not first calling Cronje to give his defence before passing their sentence.

Does that show incompetence from the UCB? In both cases: You bet.

Mail Cricket Editor