Top 5 South African all-rounders of all-time

#4 Hansie Cronje

Cronje will remain a South African great despite his involvement in a match-fixing scandal

Despite his involvement in the infamous match-fixing scandal in 2000, Hansie Cronje is one of the best cricketers to have come out of South Africa. Having made his international debut in 1992, Cronje went on to become one of the pillars of the South African team of the 1990s and led the team in all three formats from 1993 till 2000.

He led South Africa to their only silverware, winning the 1998 Champions Trophy where he scored an unbeaten 61 against West Indies in the final. Predominantly, a middle-order batsman, Cronje was also pretty handy as a right-arm medium bowler.In 68 Tests, Cronje scored 3714 runs at an average of 36.41 and a strike rate of 44.63, hitting 23 fifties and 6 hundreds with his highest Test score being 135 against India in 1992 which was also his maiden century in international cricket. He took 43 wickets with the ball at an average of 29.95 and at an economy rate of 2.03 with his best bowling figures being 14/3 against Zimbabwe at Harare in 1999.

In 188 ODIs, Cronje scored 5565 runs at an average of 38.64 and a strike rate of 76.47, hitting 39 fifties and 2 hundreds with both of them coming against Australia. His highest ODI score is 112 against Australia at Johannesburg in 1994.

Cronje’s bowling records in ODIs is much better than his Test records, having taken 114 wickets with the ball at an average of 34.78 and an economy rate of 4.44 with his best bowling figures in ODIs being 32/5 against India at Cape Town in 1992. Cronje was handed a life ban from cricket in 2000 owing to his involvement in a match-fixing scandal in 2000 and was later killed in a plane crash in 2002.

Nevertheless, given his numbers, Hansie Cronje is definitely one of the greatest all-rounders South Africa have produced.