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Woolmer says Cronje should get another chance

Paul Martin, in Cape Town

South Africa's former cricket coach Bob Woolmer has called for Hansie Cronje to get another chance to play international cricket. Woolmer has offered to give evidence to Judge King's match-fixing investigation, which starts in Cape Town tomorrow. Cronje himself is one of some 46 witnesses due to give evidence to Judge Edwin King.

When the scandal broke, Woolmer wrote that he felt "betrayed" and enraged by Cronje's actions. Now though, Woolmer has told newsmen that his former skipper should be brought back to international cricket "as soon as possible".

He says Aussie cricket stars Mark Waugh and Shane Warne had admitted accepting money from bookmakers to give them information, but they never got banned. Why, asks Woolmer, should Cronje be treated any differently?

Also counting in Cronje's favour, says Woolmer, is the fact that Cronje has admitted he did wrong.

Woolmer, now in the city where he lived for many years, Cape Town, was originally not named as a witness that the commission wishes to interview.

Meanwhile, judge King has said that television cameras will be barred from most of the hearings.

The South African government and the country's cricket authorities have been at pains to stress that the evidence should be given in the full glare of the media. But King told Live Africa that no cameras will be allowed in after the formal opening session in Cape Town tomorrow. The absence of television cameras is considered by some as denying viewers the evidence of their own eyes.

Others argue that cameras could intimidate witnesses.

King has wide leeway as to what rules to establish at the commission's hearings. But he says he has a lack of knowledge of modern media technology. However he says he usually starts reading any newspaper from the back page (sports page) forwards. He is a well-known cricket fan who, according to fellow-judges, would often watch cricket matches on his office television. He retired from the very senior judicial position of the Cape Province's Judge-President only a few weeks ago.

Paul Martin is the Editor of Live Africa and Sport Africa