NEWS
SCHEDULES
COLUMNS
PREVIOUS TOURS
OTHER SPORTS
STATISTICS
INTERVIEWS
SLIDE SHOW
ARCHIVES

Symcox's June 7 testimony

MR FITZGERALD: Was any amount referred to?

MR SYMCOX: You know, it was four years ago, but I can somehow remember 250. Now it wasn't a 500 and it wasn't 120. It was somewhere round there. 250.

MR FITZGERALD: 250 what?

MR SYMCOX: U.S dollars. $250 000 U.S. So he put it to us that he'd had an offer on behalf of the team, or to talk to the team, and he put it to us. And it went round the room. Obviously, this is the first time that any of us, well, certainly myself, but I'm sure any of the guys had sort of had this kind of thing thrown at us. You know, there's been a talk around world cricket for quite a long time that ja, there is betting that goes on, but we were foreign to it.

And so you sort of thought, 'Well, that's quite a lot of money, you know, especially when you divide it by the Rand'. And it went round the room, some guys, including myself, were like, 'Hey, this is quite a lot of money. Maybe we should look at it.' There were seven guys who - I'm not mistaken, there were about seven guys that felt not fit to play. For instance, Fanie de Villiers had been sick. He had to get out of bed to come to the meeting and actually play the next day. We didn't have Jonty, we didn't have Allan. Dave Richardson was sick, so - Derek Crookes had been sick on and off the tour. So it was going to be tough to win anyway.

Anyway, it went round the room as all sports meetings do. Some guys for, some guys against, and eventually it got to a point where Andrew Hudson brought up the fact that he couldn't go with it. He didn't think that we should get involved in that. And he was supported by Derek and Darryl Cullinan.

MR FITZGERALD: Derek who?

MR SYMCOX: Derek Crookes and Darryl. And they sort of said to the guys that you know, this is something that we don't want to get involved with. We haven't been involved in it before, although other teams may have, and we're walking a bad line here, and we should consider this very carefully. And as the consensus was, Hansie said if that's the case, then if that's how the guys feel, then it's a no-go. We're not getting involved. It was a team decision. And that's where that meeting ended.

MR FITZGERALD: Mr Symcox, there've been conflicting reports in the media, inter alia, about how many meetings there were. Are you aware of any further meetings that took place with regard to the offer?

MR SYMCOX: Ja, I've also read that there were 3 meetings, 5 meetings, but I can't - all I know is I went to that meeting. There was that meeting, definitely. And then straight after that meeting, there was - it wasn't a meeting, there were players that sat around afterwards, had a chat, like a gathering, and we discussed it, like it would normally come out on any tour where there's senior players. And 4 or 5, or 4 players I can remember sitting around, in the room, just chatting. Hansie on the bed, and we were just chatting about the decision that had been taken.

And we laughed and joked about it, and then someone said, 'Why don't we try and see if we can get any more out of them? Let's see how far they'll go.' Which at the time wasn't a bad thing, you know? So Hansie picked up the phone, phoned, put down the phone and said, 'We've got another $100 000 U.S.' Phew, just like that. And then suddenly there are only 4 of you. You know, the cuts a big difference then, all of a sudden. Anyway, we laughed, and then eventually it was Hansie that actually said, 'Guys, I'm not comfortable with - if the whole team aren't involved and other guys aren't here, there's no ways we can actually get involved in this.' And we left it at that. Finished a beer and walked out. And that was the other meeting, if that was a meeting more then a gathering, that I was involved with.

COMMISSIONER: Are you in a position to tell us who the other ones were at this gathering, subsequent to the meeting?

MR SYMCOX: You know, I remember 4 guys and I can't remember the fifth, but I know Dave Richardson was there, and I think Brian McMillan was there and Hansie was there with myself. Hansie was lying on the bed, somebody was sitting on the corner, I sat on a chair next to the bed, and that was it.

MR FITZGERALD: Was the fact that the offer had been made something that you in particular kept secret about on your return to South Africa? Was there any decision amongst the team that this shouldn't be disseminated?

MR SYMCOX: I can't remember that we talked about saying, 'Look, don't tell anybody', kind of. It wasn't - we just dismissed it out of hand, and we talked about it amongst ourselves on the tours, I mean, you know like all cricketers, we're all sportsmen, everybody in the team sort of talks about it, so it wasn't that I wouldn't speak to Darryl maybe about, 'Hey, do you remember that time we had that meeting?', kind of, you know? It was talked about.

MR FITZGERALD: Thank you. Can we now turn to the next time - or let's deal with - I'm not sure if it follows chronologically. Have you ever been approached on any other occasion with regard to influencing a match or doing anything which shouldn't have been done?

MR SYMCOX: Yes, I have. On two occasions.

MR FITZGERALD: Can you describe the first of those occasions to the Commission?

MR SYMCOX: The first one, again is a player I wouldn't like to mention, call him Mr X, booking into a hotel room in either Bombay or Delhi, at the door said Hallo and chatted, and just exchanged words, and then said would I be interested in getting involved in some betting on a match. And we talked and I said, 'No, I didn't think - It's no, I couldn't do it.' And besides, I thought - well, probably for two reasons.

One was it was hell of a strange to ask me, because I can't really help you. Firstly, I didn't even know if I was going to be in the team or not. And secondly, I still at that stage in 1996 thought I had about 10 years of cricket left, you know. So I said, 'No'.

COMMISSIONER: Was this just you and this Mr X that were in this conversation?

MR SYMCOX: Yes.

COMMISSIONER: I'm not sure that I follow.

MR SYMCOX: Yes.

MR FITZGERALD: Was Mr X on his own at the time or was there anybody else with him?

MR SYMCOX: Ja, there was another guy with, standing next to him, but he wasn't sort of part of the conversation. He just happened to be - it looked liked he happened to be walking with him, from behind him. So he wasn't party to the conversation, but he was sort of standing 2 or 3 metres behind him.

Click here for more....