Hansie Cronje Voted Test Cricket's Biggest Scandal — SkimNews
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- Hansie Cronje's match-fixing was voted Test cricket's biggest scandal in a BBC Test Match Special readers' poll, with his plot to engineer a result in a 2000 dead-rubber Test against England at Centurion Park exposed when Delhi police accidentally tapped his phone while targeting a bookmaker.
- The D'Oliveira Affair ranked second — England's 1968 tour of South Africa was called off over the inclusion of mixed-race all-rounder Basil D'Oliveira during apartheid, which TMS commentator Jonathan Agnew linked to 'the birth of a new South Africa.'
- Sandpapergate placed third, recalling the incident eight years ago when Australian cricketers used sandpaper to alter the ball during a Test against South Africa in Cape Town; the ranking was released the day before Australia's first Test back in South Africa.
- Pakistan's 2010 spot-fixing scandal at Lord's ranked fifth, resulting in jail time for captain Salman Butt and fast bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir after deliberately bowled no-balls; former England bowler Steven Finn recalled officials reading the News of the World in the Pakistan dressing room that summer.
- The forfeited Test at The Oval in 2006 ranked tenth, after umpire Darrel Hair asked for the ball to be changed on suspicion of ball-tampering and Pakistan refused to play after tea — with England eventually awarded the match and a 3-0 series win years later.
- World Series Cricket — Kerry Packer's rival 1970s competition that poached the world's best players — placed seventh, with commentator Andy Zaltzman dismissing it as a scandal altogether and calling it 'more cricket growing up' that 'modernised the sport.'
Why it matters: The ranking is timed to Australia's first Test in South Africa since Sandpapergate, the very incident that placed third — making the top result, Cronje's match-fixing, a reminder that cricket's worst scandals have repeatedly forced protective change. Finn called Cronje's case 'the biggest' catalyst of reform, while Agnew argued D'Oliveira's affair ultimately contributed to the dismantling of apartheid, showing readers weighted moral and political consequences as heavily as on-field cheating.
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