McCullum was in his hotel room in 2008, the night before the first ever Indian Premier League match, when he would open the batting for his team, the Kolkata Knight Riders.
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The court heard Cairns then propositioned McCullum a second time in Worcester, England, where McCullum was playing a game in June 2008.
Speaking at the ongoing Chris Cairns’ perjury trial, Vincent on Monday told a London courtroom that Mongia was one of the key members of a “Gang of four” that fixed matches during the tournament. “He was someone I looked at as a friend”.
He also offered to meet him for coffee, but Vincent said the meeting never took place.
The 34-year-old McCullum said he asked Cairns how to get the money back to New Zealand.
He asked McCullum why he had attended charity events organised by Cairns since 2008, and played golf with him, if he was so shocked and disgusted by the spot fixing approach. He asked me if I knew anything about spot-fixing in cricket.
It was explained to him that you manipulated the runs in a match, but not the result of the game, McCullum added.
Under questioning from Crown prosecutor Sasha Wass QC, McCullum said Cairns was one of New Zealand’s greatest cricketers and an ambassador for the game. Vincent said Tuffey had told him: “I’ll f**king kill him”. But I quickly became aware he wasn’t joking… when he kept talking in quite a relaxed nature about it.
McCullum said Cairns told him that “everyone else was doing it in world cricket” and that he was the “sort of player and sort of personality who was able to take it on”.
“I wish I had of said no straight away, but I couldn’t comprehend that Chris would put me in a position where he’d risk my future in the game”.
And yet, when Cairns chose to sue Modi for libel, McCullum did nothing.
Cairns is standing trial at Southwark Crown Court in London on two counts of perjury and perverting the course of justice, relating to his successful libel action against Lalit Modi, the founder of the IPL, in 2012.
They both deny the charges.
“I was scared to come forward and say that someone I admired in New Zealand had asked me to come forward to match fix”, McCullum said.
Vincent played 23 Tests for New Zealand between 2001 and 2007.
He told the jury Cairns told him: “You leave it in Dubai for a couple of years and then you sell your property”. Mongia says he is unaware if the Kiwis were fixing matches.
Pownall also challenged an earlier claim of Vincent’s that he, a batsman, had been ordered to bowl by Cairns, in order to throw the match.
Asked why he didn’t report Cairns to the cricket authorities, McCullum said he “didn’t want it to be true. He was someone I looked at as a friend”.
McCullum agreed his statements had changed as he remembered more information – but his central allegation that Cairns had approached him remained the same.
McCullum said he left the meeting having told Cairns he would “go and think about it”.
In a phone call between the pair about a week later, McCullum said he told Cairns he did not want to be involved.
“He said he couldn’t ask Dan Vettori and Jake Oram”.
As part of his cross-examination in the current trial, Orlando Pownall QC, on behalf of Cairns, produced an email chain which showed Vincent contacted Modi in 2010 about the libel case.
Even following the two alleged approaches from Cairns, Mr Pownall said there were a number of social occasions where McCullum and Cairns spent time together.
It is something that Mr McCullum would want to ensure “remains intact”, Mr Pownall suggested.
Pownall earlier questioned the reliability of McCullum’s memory after accusing him of inconsistencies between his evidence and previous statements he had made.
“There’s no reason for me to be here other than to tell the truth”.
The next day, McCullum said Cairns called him to ask whether he had changed his mind.
Vincent has also mentioned that former New Zealand skipper, Stephen Fleming, cornered him in a bar once about being “dirty” along with Cairns.
“I have been told that the ICC and the Anti-Corruption Unit are comfortable about how things have turned out”, he told the court.
New Zealand test player Daryl Tuffey was among the names thrown up in the match-fixing controversy as working for Cairns, the court has heard. “There’s no benefit [to me]” replied McCullum. McCullum was quoted as saying.
He replied: “Not to my knowledge, no”.
Bond gave evidence about watching what he termed a “suspicious” Indian Cricket League match, in which Cairns appeared unhappy when one of his team’s players scored 40-something to win the match. “To me he did not seem pleased that Chandigarh had won”.
“Chris was a hero”, he said.
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“It sounds odd but I was okay with it. I just sort of hoped that the conversations we’d had…just didn’t exist”.
