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So far, no Ali Bacher (and Majid Khan) have come forward to accuse France of 'throwing' the match against Senegal nor have other professional 'accusers' come out of their hibernation and claim with authoritative , inside-dope that the bookies had fixed the result.

No equivalent of Paul Condon has his snoops in the dressing-rooms of the teams, watching like hawks every move of the players. What was Yousuf Youhana whispering in the ears of his baby son? There will be no judicial inquiry and the bank balance of Zinedine Zidane will not be scrutinised.

This is an absurd way of starting a column on the 2002 World Cup. When Bangladesh beat Pakistan in the 1999 Cricket World Cup it was no less an upset than Senegal beating France. But no vultures were circling the skies. An upset is a part and parcel of sport. As my mentor on horse-racing Mile Coligno used to tell me; "If the favourite won every time, there would be no horse-racing."

Football is a truly global sport and for the duration of the World Cup, our minds may be elsewhere but our hearts will be in South Korea and Japan. It doesn't matter that there is no team from the subcontinent in the competition, we have all picked a team that we will root for.

In the past, for me it was Brazil. They played 'Samba' football in the way that the West Indies played 'Calypso' cricket. But this year I am pulling for any of the teams from Africa.

I loved the way Pape Bouba Diop took off his shirt after scoring a goal, place on the field and Senegal players danced around the shirt. This was pure joy, an unbounded innocence, what sport is all about. It really doesn't matter whether Senegal makes any further progress in the tournament. They are already champions in their own country and there is poetic justice that Senegal was once a colony of France.

Pakistan Television is showing every match of the World Cup live and God bless them for it. A number of five-star hotels in conjunction with multinationals have put on large screens and are inviting people to watch the matches.

I have no quarrel with this but what I would recommend to the Pakistan government is that they place giant screens at parks and playing grounds so that people who cannot afford to go to five-star hotels can watch the matches. I can think of no better way of getting our people interested in football. It is a game that a country such as Pakistan should get passionate about.

I cannot see football replacing cricket as our first love but it is time that the subcontinent took to playing it at a serious competitive level. I think Pakistan needs to appoint a football supremo, the equivalent of a Nur Khan, if not Nur Khan himself.

Sports in its way is, perhaps, the only way of crashing through social barriers. It also generates a positive kind of nationalism and you get 'feeling good about your country' out of your system on a playing ground rather than a battle field.

I was shocked when I learnt of the death of Hansie Cronje in an air crash. Once over the shock I was deeply saddened. Here was a young man who had been dealt a good hand but he had played it badly. But he was trying to put his life together. He had accepted money from bookmakers to influence the course of matches and he was banned from cricket for life. What he had done was wrong, that's about all it was.

It was not a heinous crime that had caused untold misery to thousands. There are those who are guilty of war crimes and statues are erected in their memory. Nelson Mandela was, as usual, charitable in the best sense of the word.

"Here was a young man courageously and with dignity rebuilding his life after the setback he had suffered a while ago. The manner in which he was doing that, rebuilding his life and public career, promised to make once more a role model of how one deals with adversity," he said.

But Cronje's death will not affect a criminal case against the former skipper in a match-fixing scandal, Indian police said. "Hansie is dead but the match-fixing case is alive," said a top official from the Delhi police department.

So cussed is bureaucracy that it will pursue you beyond your death and if the Delhi police has its way, there will be no peace for Hansie Cronje even in the hereafter. What will they do? Slap a warrant of arrest on his grave?

I first met Hansie in East London in 1991 when I had gone to South Africa. Trevor Quirk, the South African commentator had introduced me to him and Allan Donald as we were spending a convivial evening.

Neither Hansie nor Allan had too much to say for themselves. They were, if anything, a bit shy and both were very likable persons. I add my condolences and sympathy to those of others who mourn his death.

I was also very sad to learn about the death of Subhash Gupte who surely was the world's greatest leg-spinner ever until Shane Warne arrived on the scene. Subhash toured Pakistan with Vinoo Mankad's team in 1955 and it was he who bat Maqsood Ahmed in the air and had him stumped by Tamhane for 99 at the Bagh-i-Jinnah in Lahore.

Less known is that when A.H. Kardar took a team to Mumbai a year previously to mark the Silver Jubilee of the Mumbai Cricket Association, Gupte had played against Kardar's team and had taken all ten wickets in the first innings or it could have been the second innings.

Subhash was a combative cricketer on the field and off the field, apparently didn't suffer fools gladly. He had some quarrel with an Indian cricket official, upped toots and settled in Trinidad in the West Indies. I liked him and he and I got along just fine.

© Dawn