By Ed Stoddard
Johannesburg - Vilified for scandalising the tradition-steeped world of cricket, former South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje has, in death, been elevated almost to sainthood by the local media.
Cronje, 32, was killed on Saturday when a cargo plane he was travelling in crashed into a mountain in the Western Cape province. His funeral is on Wednesday.
He stunned the cricket world two years ago when he admitted he had accepted around $130,000 from bookmakers to influence the course of matches.
| 'Cronje's death has shown up the South African media for the bunch of seedy hypocrites they are' |
His most shocking admission came when he confessed to asking Henry Williams and Herschelle Gibbs to underperform in a one-day international against India in Nagpur in March 2000.
He was subsequently banned for life.
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Shattered by his fall from grace, much of the South African press attacked Cronje. But his death has placed South Africa's notoriously fickle sports fans in a forgiving mood.
"He was widely vilified in the press here but he had spent a lot of time out of the game and people are now ready to forgive," Stuart Hess, a cricket writer with the Johannesburg-based Star newspaper, has said.
Local newspaper tributes have, for the most part, been gushing in their praise.
| 'For two years and two months we didn't have the support of the people. Why now?' |
"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".
The newspaper also described him as "a gifted sportsman and a natural leader whose self-admitted greed led to a life ban from cricket", while the Sunday Independent described Cronje as "a handsome young man with wonderful talent on the cricket field".
The Afrikaans weekly newspaper Rapport devoted six full pages to the life and times of Cronje.
"There was certainly never a better captain or a nicer person at the helm of South Africa's cricket team than Hansie Cronje," said the newspaper's veteran cricket writer Johan Esterhuizen.
The plaudits continued on Monday with the Citizen newspaper's editorial saying: "no matter what you say about Hansie Cronje, you can count us among his fans. He was a charismatic, natural leader and a great sportsman."
Cronje's death has so affected the South African community, that the satellite SuperSport TV channel will broadcast the funeral from his former school in his hometown of Bloemfontein live.
But his posthumous rehabilitation in the local press has been labelled as hypocritical by some.
"If nothing else Hansie Cronje's death has shown up the South African media for the bunch of seedy hypocrites they are," Robert Kirby, a columnist with the weekly Mail & Guardian newspaper, told Reuters.
"Yesterday they were screeching about the irreparable harm he'd done to South Africa, indeed world cricket; today you'd think a minor messiah had died," he said.
Cronje's father Ewie also questioned why the family was suddenly getting support from previously hostile quarters.
"For two years and two months we didn't have the support of the people. Why now?" he asked.
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