More than two decades after the Hansie Cronje scandal shook world cricket, South African great Daryll Cullinan believes there are still unanswered questions from the game’s darkest chapter. In an exclusive conversation with Sports Now, Cullinan reflects on Cronje’s tragic fall, the shadow cast by organized crime, and a moment from Sachin: A Billion Dreams that left him deeply unsettled. While making it clear he is not accusing anyone, Cullinan says one remark from Tendulkar about India’s struggles during his captaincy has never been examined closely enough, prompting him to wonder whether cricket’s most painful era still has stories waiting to be told.
The Cronje scandal has long been viewed as the defining moment of cricket’s match-fixing era. But Cullinan believes history may still be incomplete. Looking back with the benefit of time, he says the true scale of corruption during that period could have been far greater than most people realized.
Hansie Cronje Just Got Caught Up In It
“Unfortunately, I think, if all truths were told, and everyone revealed themselves about what they did and didn’t do, we would be shocked to the extent that it was happening, who else was involved everywhere. And unfortunately, Cronje just got caught up in it. I think he tested it out, not probably naively understanding the scale and what it would actually involve,” he said.
Cullinan is careful to distinguish what happened from casual gambling. In his view, Cronje’s downfall was not simply about placing bets, but about becoming entangled in something far more sinister—something few players at the time truly understood.
“Because I think few actually understood at the time. I’d like to think that how this wasn’t just a naughty little, let’s have a little bet on something and I’ll help you out. This was serious, obviously, criminal underworld activities.”
“And I’m sure that he must have realized, ‘Wow, what have I done here? What have I got involved in?’ I mean, I played 138 one-day internationals. He captained 138 one-day internationals. I don’t ever feel or recall that there was a match being fixed. Whether there was information being passed on a pitch report or team selection, that was happening,” he recalled.
For Cullinan, Cronje’s legacy remains deeply personal. Beyond the scandal and headlines, he remembers a charismatic leader whose life ultimately became one of cricket’s greatest tragedies.
“We knew that was happening. And we don’t want to get too much involved in that. And who was involved in that in the South African team? When and how, I don’t know. Where it was happening globally, I don’t know. So if I look back on it, I mean, it’s such a long time ago. I feel very sad for the way the story ended, because he was a very charismatic guy,” he conceded.
‘Sachin Tendulkar Obviously Wanted To Captain India’
Then the conversation takes an unexpected turn. Cullinan reveals that while watching Sachin: A Billion Dreams during a recent flight, one seemingly ordinary line from Tendulkar about his captaincy immediately caught his attention. It wasn’t what Tendulkar explicitly said—it was what Cullinan believes may have been left unsaid.
“I was on a flight last week. And I watched Sachin’s Billion Dreams. And I’m actually quite disappointed in myself not having watched it before. And there was a telling moment in that documentary when he took on the captaincy,” he said.
“And now I’m familiar with the backstory and all of that. And he said he obviously wanted to do it, and it meant a lot to him. And I think he got sacked. He gave up the captaincy. Well, they took it away from him. And he said, along the lines of, he found it so frustrating, because there were games which should have been won, which were being lost,” the former South African batter revisited.
Cullinan is emphatic that he is not making an allegation. In fact, he repeatedly acknowledges there may have been nothing unusual at all. Yet he says Tendulkar’s reflection on losing matches India should have won continues to linger in his mind, leaving him with questions he feels cricket has never fully explored.
‘In That Sentence So Much Got Said’
“But if you’ve watched it or haven’t watched it, or someone’s going to watch it, go and find in that sentence. I think so much got said. He said he could not understand why they were losing games that they should be winning. And I wonder why that’s never been unpacked properly. Maybe it was at the time.”
“I think the movie was released in 2017. But that stuck with me afterward. Because so much was being said there. So much potentially, or maybe nothing. It was just bad cricket. But since we’re on the subject and we’ve gone down that road, I just found it such, and I had to share it. I just found it such a big comment. It was a massive comment. Why were we not winning games we should? Why were we losing games that we should have been winning?” he concluded.
Cricket has spent decades trying to move on from the match-fixing era. Yet, for the South African great, some chapters still feel unfinished. Whether Tendulkar’s words reflected nothing more than sporting frustration or hinted at a larger truth may never be known. But one thing is certain: even after all these years, the game’s darkest period continues to leave behind questions that refuse to disappear.
