Laughter: What did Bob Woolmer want to know from the Delhi Police Commissioner about the former South African cricket captain?

On April 18, 2005, the Pakistani cricket team was scheduled to return home after a successful tour of India, but shortly before departure, it was learned that the head coach of the Pakistan team, Bob Woolmer, was visiting Police Commissioner KK Paul in Delhi. Bob Woolmer himself expressed a desire for the meeting.

Indian journalist Pradeep Magazine has described the meeting in detail in his book 'Not Quite Cricket' as the meeting was made possible by Pradeep.

Pradeep Magazine writes, "During the Pakistan team's tour of India, I became friends with team manager Saleem Altaf because of our common interest in tennis.""We used to play tennis together in the evenings. One day Saleem Altaf told me that Bob Woolmer wanted to meet Delhi Police Commissioner KK Paul, so please help and make an appointment."

Pradeep Magazine writes, "I guess Bob Woolmer wanted to meet the Delhi Police Commissioner with reference to former South African captain Hansie Cronje." KK Pal was the police officer who supervised the investigation into the relationship between Hansi Kroni and bookmaker Sanjay Chawla, and it was KK Pal who revealed the telephone contact between the two at a press conference in Delhi on April 7, 2000. What was

"Bob Woolmer wanted to know how much truth there was in these investigations because he was in no way prepared to implicate Hansie Cronje in the case, and this was made clear in a meeting with the Commissioner of Police."

It may be recalled that Bob Woolmer was the coach of the South African cricket team before the Pakistan team and this is the period during which there were rumors of contacts with Hansi Cronje's bookmakers and allegedly receiving large sums of money from them. The African government set up the King's Commission to investigate.

In the light of these investigations, Hansi Cronje was banned from playing cricket for life.

What happened in the meeting between Woolmer and the police commissioner?

Pradeep Magazine writes, "After the Commissioner of Police arranged for a meeting, I took Bob Woolmer to KK Paul's residence in South Delhi where there was a very interesting conversation between the two."

He writes: "Initially, the Commissioner of Police calmly told Bob Woolmer that Cronje was indeed involved in the case and that the investigation was transparent. Then KK Paul's tone changed and he asked some questions that made Bob Woolmer unanswerable. Says Pradeep Magazine: "KK Paul asked Woolmer how it is possible that a coach or someone who is very close to the captain is unaware or has no doubt that the team captain is a bookmaker. On payroll? '

KK Paul also asked Bob Woolmer if Hansie Cronje had acknowledged the bookmakers' offers and the money they received before the King's Commission, and had said that he had met with the team more than once. Get feedback from your players on offers from bookmakers, whether they should be accepted or not. So why didn't you find out about these meetings? '

"Bob Woolmer was forced to take a defensive stance on this question and he replied to KK Paul that he found out about these meetings later," he added.

The Delhi Police Commissioner also reminded Bob Woolmer that while sitting in the dressing room at the 1999 World Cup, he was talking to Cronje on the field with the device that was attached to his ear. Didn't you know that Cronje is a fixer? Woolmer's only answer was that he was talking to his captain about match strategy.

Woolmer really didn't know anything about Cronje?

Speaking to Janisports. online, Pradeep Magazine said that in this meeting, KK Paul and he himself were in doubt as to how it was possible that Bob Woolmer was unaware of such important things. It was as if Woolmer knew a lot about it but was hiding it.

The general opinion is that Bob Woolmerko knew a lot about the contacts and offers from Hansi Cronje's bookmakers. This can be gauged from the statements made by some of the South African players before the King's Commission.

According to these statements, when the last match of the South African team's tour of India was played in Mumbai in 1996, which was given the status of a last-minute international match, the South African players were unhappy because they were so tired during the tour. And they wanted the tour to end soon. Bookmaker Mukesh Gupta offered Hansi Cronje دو 2.5 million for losing the match.

He later added a million dollars to the offer when contacted by Cronje, as some players were curious as to whether the offer could be increased. However, Andrew Hudson, Derek Crooks and Daryl Kleinen immediately turned down the offer.

Former ICC chief executive David Richardson, then the South African wicketkeeper, said in a statement to the King's Commission that it was the first time in his international career that such an offer had been considered in the team's environment. Be

Off-spinner Pete Simcox said in a statement to the King's Commission that the offer was taken "very seriously". Where did this offer of huge money for losing come from? "You have to judge for yourself," replied Simcox. Obviously, it did not come from the Prime Minister.

"We had to take this money."

In his book 'Caught', English journalist Simon Wilde mentions the incident that took place in the dressing room during this match in Mumbai in which Hansi Cronje was very angry when the deal was not done and he ate in anger. The plate bounced so hard that the chicken pieces went to the roof.

In his book, Simon Wilde quotes an interview with Bob Woolmer's Daily Telegraph in which he heard Bob Woolmer say to Cronje: I could have bought a house. '

On the one hand, Bob Woolmer used to narrate all these incidents in his interviews, but the head of the South African Cricket Board, Dr. Ali Baqir, in his statement before the King's Commission, said that Bob Woolmer and team manager Robert Mosel never visited him. The report did not mention any such thing, while Bob Woolmer said that he was telling Dr. Ali Baqir about it.

In a June 2000 interview with the Wisden Cricket Monthly, Bob Woolmer said of Cronje that he was also very active in the stock market and that cricket was not his only source of livelihood.

What did Saleem Malik say to Cronje?

Hansie Cronje said in a statement to the King's Commission that the bookmaker first approached him in Cape Town in January 1995, before the first final of the Best of Three Mandela Trophy. He was 25 at the time and only three months old when he became captain.

He said that the person was a Pakistani or an Indian whom he knew only by the name of 'John'."I was offered ten thousand dollars by a man named John in exchange for losing, which I only mentioned to off-spinner Pete Simcox, but when I went on the field, Pakistani captain Saleem Malik asked me, ' Have you talked to John? '

"Saleem Malik's statement was proof that he was also aware of this offer to me."

This is the same match in which captain Saleem Malik and wicketkeeper Rashid Latif had sharp differences over the issue of batting first for South Africa after winning the toss and after that Rashid Latif raised the voice of the alleged mess in the team.

Cronje also told the King Commission that when the South African team was in Sharjah in 1996, a bookmaker named Sunil approached him and talked about fixing matches for the team's tour of India, which he rejected. ۔

Hansi Cronje's life was marked by a few more suspicious people from whom he received money and sank into the swamp. Finally, on June 1, 2002, he died in a small plane crash in South Africa.

Bob Woolmer was found dead in his hotel room in Kingston, Jamaica on March 18, 2007, the morning after the Pakistani team's shock defeat against Ireland in the World Cup. Like Wonder Cronje, Bob Woolmer's death has left many secrets shrouded in mystery forever.