Ali Bacher

Calcutta: Dr Ali Bacher, at one time among the most powerful of administrators in sport, spoke to The Telegraph from his Johannesburg residence on Saturday evening.

A former captain of South Africa, Dr Bacher, now 71, also served as managing director of his country's cricket Board (Cricket South Africa, of late) and ended his innings as executive director of the 2003 World Cup.

The following are excerpts

Q Well, are you the man who knows more about the Hansie Cronje affair than is out in the public domain?

A Not true... No, my friend.

Fine... What’s your reaction to the Delhi Police, which unearthed the match-fixing scandal 13 years ago, finally filing the chargesheet and naming Hansie as an accused?

I’ll only say that the Cronje family has gone through enough trauma, that they be left alone... Hansie’s soul should rest in peace.

Has anybody from the Cronje family spoken to you after the Delhi Police development?

No.

Are you embarrassed that, initially, you’d vouched for Hansie’s credibility, but had to quickly backtrack?

I don’t wish to go back in time. I hope you’ll understand. However, nothing has changed... Look at Salman Butt and Mohammed Asif, two of the three Pakistanis (Mohammed Aamer being the other), jailed for spot-fixing... Players have also been arrested for fixing in the IPL... It’s the same story.

Few believe that the cargo plane crash which killed Hansie 26 months after the match-fixing scandal broke was an accident... What’s your take?

What I know for certain is that the weather in George, where Hansie was headed, had been terrible that day... There was just too much fog, something confirmed by a close friend, who could barely see a few yards while driving. It was that bad and Hansie’s plane, which had taken off from Johannesburg, couldn’t land.

You were a key witness at the King Commission, set up by the South African government, and deposed under oath. Did you allege that teams from the subcontinent had been involved in fixing in 1999?

It wasn’t my allegation, I repeated what Majid Khan (a former Pakistan captain and CEO of the Pakistan Cricket Board) had told me... I’d called him up the previous night and asked if I could repeat what he’d conveyed to me... He gave his consent. I’d describe Majid as very brave.

Were you aware that Hansie and teammates actually discussed a fixing offer in the hours leading up to the Mumbai ODI (Mohinder Amarnath’s benefit match) in December 1996?

No.

So, when did you get to know?

After the match-fixing scandal became public... Neither Hansie nor Bob Woolmer (the coach) nor manager Robbie Muzzell had informed me... When I heard about it, I phoned Muzzell, who then confirmed the news. I was shocked.

[With Sachin Tendulkar scoring 114, India won by 74 runs.]

Haven’t the administrators failed the sport?

Let me reiterate that nothing has changed.

Isn’t the ICC’s Anti-Corruption and Security Unit a joke?

Look, I’m not involved, so I can’t comment... What I can say is that Lord Paul Condon (the Unit’s first head) did put structures in place. But I don’t know what’s happening now.

Why do the Butts dance to the tune of fixers?

It’s a cliche, but money indeed is the root of all evil. I don’t see any other reason. It’s not that the players aren’t educated about the perils of fixing... It’s greed, nothing else... Obviously, only some players are involved... On the other side, you have a Sachin Tendulkar, a Jacques Kallis... There was Steve Waugh... An overwhelming majority have been and are clean.

Sreesanth was one of the heroes of India’s win in the Wanderers Test on the 2006-07 tour... Were you shocked when he was arrested for spot-fixing in the IPL?

Frankly, after the spot-fixing by the three Pakistanis, I wasn’t that surprised. I was, of course, very disappointed. Be it match-fixing or spot-fixing, it’s cancer and must be eradicated. The quicker the better.

What’s your prescription?

It’s time to call in a heavyweight like Interpol (as the International Criminal Police Organisation is better known)... They’ll know what to do, have the means and resources to stamp out fixing. This is a constructive suggestion from my side.

The last one... Have you watched international matches where you’ve deemed certain happenings to be suspicious?

But strange things can genuinely happen... I recall having dropped a dolly off Ian Chappell’s bat in the Durban Test (1969-70 series)... The bowler to suffer was Eddie Barlow... Even my grandson could have caught it, the catch had been so simple... Having said that, there are times when people do ask questions. That’s a fact.