Hansie Cronje says he took his eyes off Jesus and was tempted by Satan when he accepted money from bookies in exchange for cricket match information and attempted to bribe some of his South African team-mates into under-performing so that he could profit a little bit more. Caught and bowled by the Devil, if you like. This happened after Hansie became a born-again Christian so God alone knows how far he might have been led astray if Satan had got to him before his conversion. As it was he only shattered the faith of an adoring sporting nation and betrayed their trust in him by revealing himself to be a greedy, deceitful, fraudulent, unprincipled and amoral cheat - but, hallelujah, nothing worse than that.
Now? Well, his eyes are back on Jesus again - but, not, one should add, because his conscience got the better of him, rather because the Delhi police accidentally tapped his hotel phone and overheard him doing a deal with a prominent Indian bookmaker to fix the outcome of the next day's play. Hansie denied all, of course, and was passionately supported by the indignant South African cricket supremo Ali Bacher ("The allegations are outrageous - Hansie Cronje is a man of unquestionable honesty and integrity"), but then the Delhi police pressed play on their tape recorder and, well, Hansie repented. And Ali very probably said: "Jesus wept, Hansie".
The whole affair triggered the current investigation into cricket corruption and was retold as part of Panorama's examination of the issue on BBC1 last week, the programme transmitted the day before the Condon Report was published. Lord Condon's team, made up of former Metropolitan Police officers, was given a £1 million-a-year budget to finance its thorough, exhaustive, no-stone-left-unturned investigation into match-fixing allegations but, as far as one could make out, its dramatic key finding appeared to be: "yup, there's something funny going on alright".
Channel Four news' Jon Snow wasn't overly impressed with this finding, while conceding that Condon simply hadn't received the necessary co-operation from the cricketing authorities to discover much more. Bemoaning the fact that no names were named in the report and suggesting that it would do nothing to remove the whiff of corruption from the game, Snow asked Lord MacLaurin of the England and Wales Cricket Board if we could believe what we were seeing in international cricket matches any more. Was there anything dodgy about the first England v Pakistan Test match last week, for example? "No," said the Lord. "Can you be sure," asked Snow. "Well, no," said the Lord.
Reassurance of that nature is tempered somewhat by programmes like Have I Got News For You? telling us the result of the second Test between England and Pakistan six days before it starts - if you don't want to know the result look away now: England will win by 143 runs, thanks largely to a fine first innings knock of 186 from Mike Atherton and bowling figures of 8-62 from Darren Gough. We can giggle, but if England win by 143 runs, thanks largely to a fine first innings knock of 186 from Mike Atherton and bowling figures of 8-62 from Darren Gough, we won't be giggling any more - and we'll suspect Satan's been dangling his carrots once again.
There's nothing about this class of sporting corruption that US Senator John McCain doesn't know already. When he served in Vietnam McCain suffered multiple broken bones when his aircraft was shot down, and was hung up by ropes for four days and imprisoned for six years. But still, you'd imagine, the experience was a whole lot less traumatic than having to deal with promoter Don King in his campaign to clean up the world of professional boxing. Both men turned up on BBC1's Boxing: A Blood Business on Thursday and, funnily enough, so did Hansie's friend Satan. "He's the devil - his hair sticks up to hide the horns," said former world heavyweight champion Larry Holmes of King, who allegedly threatened to break the fighter's legs when he demurred upon noticing that King had ripped him off to the tune of $20-30 million.
Tim Witherspoon received threats when he pointed out that the cheque he received from King for beating Frank Bruno in London was $910,000 smaller than the one they had agreed. Witherspoon promptly bought himself a gun, hired a good lawyer and successfully sued King. Then there was the Cleveland cop who recounted the day, 40 years before, when he arrived on the scene just as King was kicking to death Sam Garrett, who owed him money from a gambling debt. "I'll pay you Donald, I'll pay you Donald," were Garrett's last words before King delivered the final fatal blow to his head. "This guy was even invited to the White House," the cop sighed. "I'm not a perfect man, I'm just like any other human being," King confessed to the BBC's Gary Richardson. Can the human race take a class action slander case against this guy?
No more sporting heroes any more? Ah yes, there are. Like Oliver Kahn, for example. The fella with a face only a mother could love. As Big Ron Atkinson put it "at this precise moment he's the man of the moment". He was too, at least during the penalty shoot-out at the end of Wednesday's Champions League final. And who should be TV3's cocommentator for the night? The auld penalty shoot-out king himself, Packie Bonner. Kahn did a Packie and saved. So Valencia needed to score to stay alive. And who did they send up to take the crucial kick? A big lanky central defender who wouldn't know a penalty kick from a fish tank. Imagine? Eejits. Mauricio Pellegrino missed. But, as Packie would remind you, Davo Leary didn't.
