Disgraced South Africa captain Hansie Cronje could have rehabilitated himself by working with children in deprived townships, according to his former mentor Ali Bacher.

Bacher, 61, was head of the United Cricket Board of South Africa when Cronje was banned for life after admitting taking money from bookmakers. Cronje died in a plane crash two years ago.

"My view was that after the (2003) World Cup, he and I could get together and work out something where he could start coaching the township kids, as he had always had done so well in the past, in a low-key way, gradually building up his confidence and self-esteem through cricket again," Bacher said in a biography published this week.

"Who knows what could have happened in time if he had done things one step at a time? People can be very forgiving; just look what happened in our own country when democracy was achieved through oppressed people forgiving their oppressors."

Cronje confessed in 2000 that he had accepted up to $15,000 from a bookmaker.

"I felt like I had just experienced a terrible nightmare," said Bacher, who had accepted Cronje's initial denial that he had been involved in any wrongdoing.

Bacher said the match-fixing scandal, which also resulted in life bans for two other international captains Salim Malik (Pakistan) and Mohammad Azharuddin (India), was undoubtedly the greatest crisis in the history of cricket.

He said he had noticed a change in Cronje's personality in 1999.

"I put it down to the transformation priorities that he was battling to come to terms with," he said. "Now I believe I know why he changed.

"It is said that once the bookmakers have got you, they've got you for life. He must have been noosed by these bookmakers and he was desperately looking for a way out. He must have been having sleepless nights."

Bacher said Cronje's mother had told him after the crash that it was perhaps a blessing that her son had died.

"That summed up the whole terrible tragedy for me, a mother suggesting that only in death could her son be free from his burden."

Bacher captained South Africa to a 4-0 series victory over Australia in 1969-70, the country's last official series before it was banned from Test cricket until the 1992-3 series against India after apartheid was finally abolished.

He went into private practice as a general practitioner in 1970 and later became involved in cricket administration, helping to organise a series of controversial rebel tours to the republic during the 1980s.