The day that Dr. Ali Bacher landed in Ireland to announce that he was setting Ireland on the road to Full Membership of ICC was often described by Dermott Monteith as ‘The worst day ever in Irish cricket history.’

Dr. Bacher brought with him a plan that involved the ‘placing’ of world class International players in Ireland to assist develop the game.

It would be funded through his friendship with one of the giants of Irish sport and business, Dr. Tony O’Reilly, he of Kerrygold, Heinz, and Independent Newspapers and sometime tennis partner of Presidents of the USA!

Bacher’s first choice was Hansie Cronje, then the darling boy of South African cricket, a reputation he enhanced at every social occasion he attended North and South.

Angus Dunlop greets Hansie Cronje

His fall from grace some years later shocked the cricketing world but there would be few who met him during his time in Ireland who would say a ‘bad word’ about him.

Part of his legacy will of course be his contribution to the first ‘competitive’ win over a County side, as on 28/29 April 1997 Ireland defeated Middlesex by 46 runs - Hansie scoring 94* and taking 3-38.

The following year 1998 South Africa led by Cronje were the visitors to Downpatrick in a game that featured a Shaun Pollock century, celebrated with a pint of Guinness carried to the middle by an invading fan.

But the pic I took of Hansie in the pre-match warm-up remains a favourite memory of someone whose place in Irish cricket history is assured.

Hansie Cronje warms up

In the following few years we were to have ‘visits’ from Steve Waugh, Jonty Rhodes and Mark Waugh who in pre-IPL times were happy to accept Dr Bacher and Dr O’Reilly’s largesse and whose contributions to the local game could only be considered varied at best.

Dermott never changed his view and his belief that we were destined to forever dance to someone else’s tune has a resonance today where control of the global game appears to be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.

Be that as it may, for no other reason that we got to meet Hansie we are indebted to Drs. Bacher & O’Reilly