‘Every time someone is caught for fixing, Hansie is in headlines’
Every June 1, the closest friends of Hansie Cronje gather at the wall of remembrance at Grey College where his ashes have been laid to rest, to have a Coke and a doughnut. It’s a sight that makes his sister Hester Parsons, ‘Sissy’ to Hansie, wonder how he would have looked if he had been alive now. That’s the biggest question haunting her ever since Hansie passed away in a mysterious plane crash on June 1, 2002.
Before that crash, Hansie Cronje was to the world that shrewd South African captain who stopped at nothing to win till everything fell away after the match-fixing scandal caught up to him. To his family, he remains the loved brother and son who all looked up to but left at a time least expected. Moving on from the defamation and the intense media scrutiny has been hard but harder has been the truth that their Hansie isn’t around anymore.
And while his death had left behind a lifetime memories and treasured family photographs, it’s just not enough at times. “I just want to take a few more photos. I just want new photos. I am tired of old photos,” said Hester, voice almost choking, from Potchefstroom where she is an English teacher and also a cricket coach.
“Not too often we don’t still think about him. When the family does get together, there is a missing chair,” said Gordon Parsons, bowling coach at Highveld Lions and Hester’s husband. “What hurts is that when somebody is caught for match-fixing, Hansie is in the headlines. So it’s almost like it will never go away. That doesn’t help the family,” he said.
Cricket world has gone on to witness many more match-fixing allegations but no player probably paid a dearer price than Hansie, being banned for life and then dying so mysteriously. “I think probably if we were honest, he was such an icon as a clean-living, religious, almost a do-goody. So when he actually did something that was totally out of character, that’s what made it so massive in the public eye,” Gordon said, trying to put things in perspective.
Hester, understandably, was more emotional. “We didn’t believe it. You feel shattered,” she said. “I think the whole thing was blown out of proportion. I think it wasn’t handled properly. And I don’t think there was enough guidance.” And then there was also the grievance against some top officials for not helping her brother, a grudge Hester admit- ted to carrying for a long time even though her parents and brother Frans forgave them almost immediately.
“You know Hansie said on arriving in his hotel that he would find gifts on his bed. He thought there were some really generous people. You don’t know where the gifts come from. It’s the lifestyle we don’t understand,” said Hester. But the anguish of seeing her brother being sucked into that world gets to Hester at times. “I was angry at him. Why didn’t he say no? When he was so lonely and scared, why did he not share it with us? It was a lonely life,” she said.
Days come and go but there will be two Hester and Gordon won’t be able to forget ever. First was the day Hansie met Hester for the first time after the scandal broke. “He was at my parents’ home. He had to try and hide from the press who were everywhere. He then went to hide at a friend’s house where we went to meet him. He just said sorry. He was crying as well,” said Hester.
“The saddest thing is Hansie felt that he let us down. He was such a broken man. He had asked Peter Pollock to baptize him after this came out. And for two years, he couldn’t look up, look people in their eyes. A few weeks before he passed away, he started to look up. Mum was saying ‘Hansie is looking like Hansie again’. And then he passed away.”
Even the news of his death didn’t come to them in as many words.
“Me and Hester were on our way to the wedding of Jacques Faul, who was the CEO of Cricket South Africa. The first SMS didn’t make sense. It read ‘Hansie’s plane overdue’. But didn’t he fly last night seven? Later we found out that he missed his flight,” said Gordon.
JOHANNESBURG: What hurts is that when somebody is caught for matchfixing, Hansie is in the headlines. So it’s almost like it will never go away.
HESTER PARSONS, On the stigma around Hansie Cronje’s name