Convention has it that when a leading figure in cricket dies, theobituarists queue up to salute his contribution to the game, and observe a respectful silence about the odd lapse of behaviour or judgment. But in the case of Hansie Cronje, who was killed today in a plane crash in South Africa's Western Cape, those lapses are going to be hard to ignore.

Cronje scored 3714 runs and took 43 wickets in his 68 Tests. And he did the double in one-day internationals, with 5565 runs and 114 wickets in 188 matches. He was a classically correct batsman – well coached at Bloemfontein's Grey College, where he followed Kepler Wessels – who could adapt and slog when the situation demanded. He succeeded Wessels as South Africa's captain, too, and led them in 53 Tests and two World Cups.

But it won't be those statistics that people will remember. Sadly for Cronje's family and friends, who grieve him now, the figures the memory will dredge up will be less reputable ones. The offer of "about $10,000" to throw a one-day game in South Africa. The sum of $50,000 – or possibly $80,000 – handed over by the bookmaker MK Gupta for "information". The offer of cash to team-mates to underperform (with Cronje the middle man pocketing a commission).

And then there was cricket's most famous leather jacket since a plague of them decimated the Lord's square in 1935 – not an insect this time but the garment that Marlon Aronstam, another bookie, unbelted after Cronje's decision to forfeit an innings maximised the chances of a result in the Centurion Test in January 2000. These are the figures that will be recalled most readily.

Amid the carefully worded tributes there will be the odd sigh of relief in South Africa that he is gone. There can now be no more arguments about media accreditation, about coaching, or even about a first-class comeback (he was only 32, so a return was not out of the question). And, presumably, there won't be the promised no-holds-barred autobiography either.

It all started so well. The son of a first-class cricketer, Cronje matured at just the right time: he was only 22 when he played in South Africa's first Test back, in Barbados in 1992. An intense, beetle-browed thinker, he was in charge on the field in place of the injured Wessels when SA pulled off an amazing six-run win at Sydney in January 1994. Cronje's sprint, spin-and-jump and direct hit from mid-off ran out Shane Warne as Australia's collapse skeetered out of control.

Cronje was popular with his team-mates, and had a successful spell as Leicestershire's overseas player. He even captivated the locals in Ireland during a brief stint there. Much of the slack-jawed shock when he admitted his guilt was down to the fact that he had seemed the least likely cricketer of them all to be mixed up in the twilight world of bookies and bungs.

Until the lure of the lucre became too much for him, Hansie Cronje's name was a byword for upright batting and upright Christianity. And then it all went wrong.

Steven Lynch is Database Director of Wisden.com.

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