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Aronstam's June 23 testimony

COMMISSIONER: Keep talking, Mr Aronstam. (general laughter)

MR ARONSTAM: So what I'm saying is, people you can believe it or not, I was shocked. And I told - I can still remember telling friends - a couple of friends of mine. I've always told people in the past, 'I've heard that the South African team could be involved in throwing of matches', and they used to say to me, 'You're crazy. Don't be stupid.' I said, 'Well, that's the rumour that I've heard.' And that night, when I came out from the hotel and I phoned certain friends of mine, I said to them, 'Don't tell me I'm crazy. I've just left the Captain of South African cricket's room, and the man basically told me he's prepared to throw a match.' I even had dinner with my counsel one night, he also told me I was crazy. He said, 'How is it possible?' He says, 'You talk nonsense.' I'm Jewish and I went for Shabat dinner, and I told him the story. He said, 'Marlon, you talk nonsense.' A week ago he apologised. So I was shocked. The only thing I did say to Hansie is, 'You could make money out of supplying me pitch reports.' And in view of my position in cricket, for me, pitch reports are more important then anything, especially if they come from who I regard as one of the best players in the world, and the best judges of world cricket, Hansie Cronjé. So - .

MR BLUMBERG: Proceed to paragraph 24.

MR BLUMBERG: "I then got up to leave the room, and as I was leaving MR CRONJE said to me how was it possible for him to make any money out of cricket. I replied saying, 'The ball is in your court. Pitch reports are worth money.'" Implying that I'm prepared to pay for pitch reports.

MR BLUMBERG: What is the import of the pitch report as far as you are concerned? How does that assist you in your betting scenario?

MR ARONSTAM: Well, when you're betting on a One-day game of cricket, as I said to you, One-day cricket is not about - in the U.K. they'll quote you a price of 4 to 10 - 6 to 10, 11 to 10. Very difficult to trade cricket in the U.K. and make a profit out of it. But if you have access to overseas other markets, and you bet - they're trading the market in a very good way where you can buy and sell quickly, to get a very good guide of where the game's going to, either the spread et cetera, it's very good to know the pitch report. Certain pitches will show to you that they're going - the score's going to be very high. But in the first 15 overs, it looks like it's going to be a very high score, but the minute the ball gets a bit older, the score starts coming backwards, the team will reel them in. But it's only because of the first 15 overs and the ball's hard that they can actually score runs. Certain pitches you'll be able - are very good batting wickets and people score many runs. So if you have the information of a pitch report from the Captain himself, it will really help you if you want to trade a game of cricket and set the odds. So for my money, the most important thing for me is a pitch report. I've got no desire to know from the Captain who's going to win or lose the game. I want to know the pitch report.

MR BLUMBERG: Mr Aronstam, would you regard Hansie Cronjé, on particularly South African pitches as probably the expert on pitches?

MR ARONSTAM: Well, Hansie's so knowledgeable it's frightening. The people, the public, don't even really understand what a good Captain Hansie was. He won games for us where no other Captain would ever have won them. Half the reports that are given on the pitch reports, they're good, but to get a report from a man who's played for the last 10 years on all these pitches around the country, with him making a decision, as far as I'm concerned that's worth more than any TV commentators report, who's going out there, doesn't know the pitch well, just goes and looks at it, he looks at it at a glance and makes his report. A man like Hansie knows the pitch, as far as I'm concerned, even though he said in his statement here he doesn't supply such good pitch reports, I use the - the way he give me a pitch report, I use it to my advantage and I use my own brains to decide on his report. Sometimes I might think he might have made a mistake, but in general his pitch reports were good.

MR BLUMBERG: Right. Will you proceed now what happened after you left the hotel?

MR ARONSTAM: "I did not hear from MR CRONJE the next morning, so at approximately 9:15-am I called him. He told me he was very sorry, he had tried his best, but Nasser Hussein the England Captain was not interested in the suggestion of the declaration. At a later stage that morning, I received a phone call from a friend of mine that he was at the Centurion ground and there in fact was a game of cricket on between England and South Africa. I thereafter got up, got into my motor vehicle together with another friend of mine and travelled to Centurion in order to watch the game. While travelling to the ground, my cellphone made a strange noise, and I suddenly saw that I had what I now know to be an SMS message from Hansie, with the words to the effect, 'Be patient. I'll try and get the game.' I watched the game, which turned out to be one of the most exciting games in test match history, eventually won by England." I think it's very relevant, even though it's not in my statement, that the actual betting on this game - there was no betting in London, there was no betting in India. London kept the betting closed the whole day. I phoned a company called Victor Chandler to ask then are they betting. The answer was no, no staff were at the company to bet on it. It was a shock around the world that this match had actually - the declaration had happened, so there was no staff in most places in the world to bet. The majority of the - of friends of mine, the associates that I do have in India, told me all the bookmakers had disappeared on holiday as they never expected any match. The only place that really started opening up betting was South Africa, I would say about an hour after the match had started, in a very small way. So rumours have circulated around the country that the company that I was working for stood to lose 3, 4, R5-m on the draw. Well, people like to spread rumours. It's the most nonsense story out. From day one of this test match, the day before it started to rain, the morning of the test match it was raining and I think the players only got on the field on day one maybe at 3:30, 4 o'clock in the afternoon. So while there was no - there was basically no betting on this match the whole first day. The second day was washed out totally, the third day was washed out and the fourth day was washed out. So when people come and say, 'Ooh, geez, you stood to lose 3, R4-m on the draw and this is what you've done this for', it's a total fallacy. The company that I did work for at the time have submitted the field sheet to the Gauteng Horse Racing Gambling Board, a copy of the disk. I'm happy to - anybody to challenge all the bets struck there. This must have been the lowest ever amount of bets ever struck on a cricket match. I would say if there - up until the lunchtime on the fifth day, but prior that if there were a handful of bets, it was a lot. People say that you could have got big bets on with bookmakers. Bookmakers are not going to go and take bets on a game where they can see the weather. We contact the weather bureau every hour for a weather report. We check to make sure that we're not going to get caught by people that might think that they know the weather more than us. I have in my phone a list of every single weather bureau around the world, which I check to find out the information regarding test matches and how the weather will play a role in the test. I even recall going over to England, in the match between England and New Zealand at the Oval, where certain people said, what, am I going over to England to watch the weather? I said, 'Yes'. And they were surprised. The weather forecast was it was going to rain solidly for the whole test. I said I don't totally believe it always rains - it will rain in London on and off but I am sure there is still a chance of getting a game. I arrived there to watch the weather in England myself. Everybody who lived in London said it's going to rain for the next five days. There wasn't a drop of rain from the morning of the start of the game till the end of the game. So it's not that, you can't just take certain matches for granted on rain. And I went over hopefully also to get a pitch report. I arrived at the Oval the day before to watch the cricket, get the weather report and check the pitch. I went, I found the - I walked into the Oval, I got hold of the Groundsman, I spoke to the Groundsman and he told me the pitch report. He told me this was a very good wicket for losing of wickets. He said, 'This will not be a five day game. This game will end within four days.' He was spot on. Funnily enough, the groundsman who told me was not the Head Groundsman, he was an ex-South African living in London. So that's just to emphasise how important pitch reports are.

MR BLUMBERG: Were you prepared to pay Hansie any money for these pitch reports?

MR ARONSTAM: Sorry, once again, I forgot to turn the - .

MR BLUMBERG: Were you prepared to pay Hansie Cronjé money for these pitch reports?

MR ARONSTAM: I was definitely prepared to pay Hansie Cronjé for pitch reports.

MR BLUMBERG: And did you in fact pay him?

MR ARONSTAM: I paid Hansie Cronjé R50 000 for pitch reports.

MR BLUMBERG: And was that made clear to Hansie Cronjé, that that was the money - the object of giving him that money?

MR ARONSTAM: That was made clear to Hansie Cronjé, the R50 000 is for pitch reports and further information that he could supply, possibly if he's out the country, if he'd even tell me what the weather was like. But you definitely need, if you're involved in cricket, the more information you can get about the pitch and the weather is very important. You could be - there was a game - I'll give you some other instance. There was a game in Sri Lanka, Australia were playing Sri Lanka in a place called Gally,(?) and I remember calling the hotel, 1 o'clock in the morning from South Africa, 3 o'clock in the morning, 9 o'clock South African time, and the answer was, 'No problem, they'll get a full day's play.' They walked on the field, and as they walked on the field the heavens opened and not another ball was bowled. So if you do have somebody that might be able to assist you in other countries with the pitch report and with the weather conditions, it's a very big help. And that is the reason I paid Hansie Cronjé R50 000.

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