Cronje's shadow completes total eclipse of England efforts

Last weekend England gave their most convincing performance for a year – and still found themselves doubly eclipsed. One of the shadows could be seen coming a mile off: the World Cup, running over as usual. The sustained excellence of Caddick and Hoggard, Trescothick and Butcher and Thorpe, didn't stand a chance against a moment's incompetence from Danny Mills.

The other shadow could never have been foreseen: the death, at 32, of Hansie Cronje. International cricketers, who taste death in miniature every time they get out, tend not to encounter the real thing before their time. The most melancholy of all cricket lists is the page at CricInfo which logs Test players who did not reach their 35th birthday. In January 2000, only 36 names appeared there; in the 1990s, not one was added.

Then Tertius Bosch, the fast-bowling dentist who joined Cronje in South Africa's first post-apartheid Test team, died aged 33, of causes that were first said to be natural and have since aroused suspicion. A year ago, Zimbabwe's first black specialist batsman, Trevor Madondo, died of cerebral malaria. The past three months have brought the deaths of Ben Hollioake, Umer Rashid, and now Cronje.

For 70-odd years, the biggest name on the list was the first – Archie Jackson, the Australian whizz-kid who succumbed to tuberculosis aged 23 in 1933 and remains the shortest-lived of all Test cricketers. He played only eight Tests, so, as with Hollioake and Madondo, his loss was seen in terms of promise unfulfilled. Now, the most famous name on the list is Cronje.

He is also, of course, the most infamous, which has given the great and the good of cricket acute discomfort. Sportsmen, like the Afrikaners among whom Cronje grew up, are apt to see the world in black and white. In life, Cronje went from hero to villain in the space of a few days. In death, he has threatened to make the return journey.

Kepler Wessels, his predecessor as South African captain, said it was a tragic end to "a very unfortunate two years" for him. "He had an excellent work ethic... you knew he was doing the right thing." Really? Clive Rice, Wessels' own predecessor, said that "despite what he did" Cronje was "a fantastic bloke". Percy Sonn, the United Cricket Board of South Africa president who once said Cronje wouldn't be allowed to play beach cricket, called him "a very popular and successful captain ... who gave much to cricket in this country". Allan Donald, recently reconciled with Cronje after making it clear he felt let down, said: "In South Africa they will remember him as a hero." He was echoed by Neil Manthorp, South Africa's most authoritative cricket writer: "To some, Cronje is now a martyr." In the opposing camp, there was equally strong language. Ian Botham, a black-and-whiter if ever there was one, was unforgiving: "People will forget the good things he did and he'll be remembered for the wrong reasons." David Lloyd said he would go down as "the man who disgraced cricket". The England management declined to don black armbands, an honour recently extended to Darren Gough's grandfather, among others.

About the only person to find the middle way was Steve Waugh. "I always admired Hansie as an opponent and enjoyed his friendship," Waugh said. "Unfortunately, he didn't finish his career as everyone would have hoped, but now it is timely to forgive his shortcomings and remember the good times." If the euphemism was a little strained, the sentiment was wise and consistent as Waugh was one of the few to stay out of the stampede to ban Cronje for life.

"I've never done good things," says David Bowie's Major Tom, "I've never done bad things, I never did anything out of the blue." Captain Hansie did plenty of all three, and any judgment needs to reflect that. He was a good player whose only flaw on the field was his dourness. His team had everything except the capacity to rise to the big occasion.

Against Australia, Cronje won 13 one-dayers and lost only 11, but in tournament finals and other crunches, he lost six out of eight – including possibly the bitterest defeat of all time, a losing tie in a World Cup semi-final. Everyone remembers the climactic run-out; we forget that Cronje himself had been given out for 0, caught at slip off his boot, off Shane Warne – whom he played better than almost anyone in the world. But when he was bad, he was seriously bad. Match-fixing is a betrayal of team-mates and supporters. Cronje was a double agent. He never fully acknowledged this. His evidence to the King Commission left the distinct impression that he had not come clean. He never accounted for the million pounds that had poured into his 17 bank accounts. Plenty of sportsmen will demean themselves for a few dollars more, but Cronje was way beyond that. And although he made a few attempts at remorse, they never fitted the crime. England were right not to wear the armbands.

Cronje had talked of suicide but perhaps saw that for his family, it would be one cruelty piled upon another. Now that cruelty has arrived by another route. Rarely can a child have given his parents, or his country, so much pride, shame and grief in such rapid succession.