By Ed Stoddard
The body of former South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje will be airlifted on Sunday from the site of the plane crash that killed him on Saturday, a civil aviation official said.
"The bodies were recovered from the wreck on Saturday but we weren't able to get them off the mountain because of bad weather," Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Trevor Davids told Reuters.
"We hope to do it this morning with a military helicopter," he said, adding that an autopsy was expected to be conducted on Monday. No date has been set for a funeral.
Cronje, 32, and the two pilots of a Hawker Siddeley 748 cargo plane were killed on Saturday when the aircraft slammed into a mountain near the picturesque town of George in the Western Cape province.
The cause of the crash has not yet been determined but civil aviation officials have said that the weather was bad in the area when the plane went down.
Local media reports have said Cronje caught a ride on the ill-fated flight after missing a scheduled one.
Cronje shocked the world of cricket two years ago when he admitted he had accepted around $130 000 from bookmakers to influence the course of matches.
He was banned from professional cricket for life.
But praise has poured in from all quarters for the driven young cricketer who displayed dazzling skills on the pitch.
Former South African President Nelson Mandela was magnanimous in his tribute, saying Cronje was a model of how someone can rebuild his life after hitting rock bottom.
South Africa's Sunday newspapers were full of praise for the "hero-to-zero" sportsman.
"Nation Mourns Hansie" said a front-page headline in the City Press newspaper, while the Sunday Times obituary said he "was arguably South Africa's greatest cricket captain before his career ended in disgrace".
"Never before in this country had a 'hero-to-zero' tale of such mammoth proportions gripped most of our communities," said the Sunday Independent newspaper.
The paper described Cronje as "a handsome young man with wonderful talent on the cricket field" and a captain who could "crush or squeeze the life out of opponents".