Henry Williams, one of the players who testified against disgraced South Africa captain Hansie Cronje at his match-fixing trial, has now reportedly said he was coerced into lying about his skipper.

Williams, who played for the Proteas in just seven ODIs, originally told the King Commission that the now-deceased Cronje had offered him $15 000 to play badly in a game against India. But he now, according to the Sunday Times, has said that his lawyers told him what to say and that Cronje never mentioned a monetary figure.

He said in the newspaper: "When we testified to our lawyers what the story really was, they came up with a threat that we could be prosecuted for doing something like this."

Herschelle Gibbs was another player who gave evidence against Cronje, and both he and Williams were banned from the game for six months. Williams now says he was pressurised into making his statement.

But Mike Fitzgerald and Peter Whelan, the lawyers in question, have denied Williams' accusations, saying the player told the truth once Gibbs had done so, after they tried to lie their way out of the situation.

Whelan said: "Henry certainly came along for the ride. I didn't think he was lying initially, but he came out when Herschelle did."

In the end, Cronje admitted to match-fixing and was banned from the game for life. He was killed in a plane crash in the Western Cape in 2002, after carrying on with his life as a businessman.