He survived two chances on the fourth morning but his utter refusal to be ruffled was another stamp of the man The achievement

He survived two chances on the fourth morning but his utter refusal to be ruffled was another stamp of the man The achievement meant much, as it does to all players. For example, Vaughan’s predecessor as England’s opening batsman, Atherton, never made a Lord’s hundred.Where the Yorkshireman who was born in Lancashire goes from here is uncertain However, one of his nicknames is Virgil. Apparently, this is because he bears a passing resemblance to the puppet astronaut hero of Thunderbirds, but it may as well be because he is heading for the stars.Biography: Michael Paul VaughanBorn: 29 October 1974 in Manchester.Represents: Yorkshire, England.Test debut: v South Africa, Johannesburg 1999/2000.Test career: Matches: 18 Batting – Innings: 30 Runs: 1,035 Average: 35.68 Hundreds: 2 Highest score: 120 Bowling statistics: 48-8-181-0. Catches: 12.One-day international debut: v Sri Lanka, Dambulla 2000/01.ODI career: Matches: 13 Batting – Innings: 13 Runs: 248 Average: 20.66 Highest score: 63 Bowling statistics: 21.4-1-112-2 (av 56.0) Catches: 3.First-class career: Batting – 10,116 runs Average: 35.61 Highest score: 183 Bowling – 1,426 overs, 108 wickets at 44.26 Best bowling: 4-39.. To those reporters who were in the room in April 2000, the image is as clear now as it was then. Hansie Cronje, an icon to millions around the world and South Africa’s best loved son, looked each inquisitor squarely in the eye before defiantly declaring: “I am telling you one hundred and ten per cent, I am not guilty.”

To those reporters who were in the room in April 2000, the image is as clear now as it was then.

The captain with whom we had travelled so far had spoken, assurance enough to pour scorn on Indian police allegations that he had been snared in a betting sting.That was Saturday. At 3am the next Tuesday morning a mentally tortured Cronje confessed to his pastor, Ray MacAuley The stories breaking around him indeed had substance. “I have not been entirely honest,” a prepared statement revealed at a press conference later in the day.It was as if you had just caught your beloved sleeping with the next-door neighbour Hurt, anger, acceptance, forgiveness. The four essentials of the healing process, though there is no definitive timescale to these most human of emotions. When Cronje’s coffin was laid into the Bloemfontein soil from which he had been raised, thousands of South Africans publicly showed their feelings, suggesting the process had taken 26 months.

Case closed, if not solved.Not surprisingly, the outside world has yet to forgive Cronje for changing the face of the sport. However, in South Africa there has long been a view that the disgraced former captain got more than he deserved: a life ban from all aspects of the game, to which he still had much to make in the way of positive contribution.Following the news that he had been killed in a plane crash in the Outeniqua mountains, among the first to rush to the side of his grieving widow, Bertha, was Jonty Rhodes. Cronje and the clean-cut Rhodes, cricket’s version of Michael Owen, had been close friends for years, and the former captain’s betrayal had not broken that bond.While South Africa may be one of the world’s most violent countries, it could teach the world a thing or two about human values Forgive, but don’t forget. After all, Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in jail fighting an abhorrent apartheid system, and returned to society not bearing malice against his persecutors.