Offer was a moral test - Cullinan

Daryll Cullinan offered the bizarre view that the offer conveyed to the South African team by Hansie Cronje to throw a one-day match in Bombay in 1996 was a kind of moral test, the King commission heard on Thursday.

Cullinan was giving evidence during the second day of the commission's hearings, and his view took everyone present at the Centre for the Book in Cape Town by surprise. He had not mentioned this in his statement given to the commission before the hearings and under cross-examination from Jeremy Gauntlet Cullinan often appeared confused about exactly what he thought.

"Which horse are you riding now," asked Gauntlet at one point as Cullinan seemed unable to say whether the offer had been real, a joke on Cronje's part or a test for the team.

Cullinan maintained that Cronje was a fine captain and said he found little unusual with the declarations made during the Centurion Park Test match, although he felt England had been given too many overs in which to hunt down their victory target.

Cullinan was followed into the stand by security consultant Rory Steyn, the first person spoken to by Cronje on the night of April 11 this year when the former captain decided to confess that he had not been "entirely honest" about his dealings with bookmakers.

Steyn was handed a statement to read by Cronje, the same statement which was later faxed to Ali Bacher and Rhema church leader Ray McCauley later that night.

Steyn said that in his presence Cronje altered a figure of $20-25 000 to read $10-15 000. This was the amount that Cronje said had been handed to him by Hamid "Banjo" Cassim. Steyn said that Cronje told him he had been approached by Cassim at the Wanderers nets before the one-day interational against Zimbabwe in January. Cassim asked Cronje why he had not told him of the declarations during the fifth Test match against England. "Why didn't you ask me," was Cronje's response.

Steyn was still giving his evidence when the commission broke for lunch.