Mr Fitch-Holland made his way to the public gallery and embraced his supporters.
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For my dad (Lance Cairns) back in New Zealand, he’s a cricket man through and through.
“It’s been hell for the last five or so years and in particular the last couple of years and now having won the legal case in the Royal Courts and now here …”
Along with McCullum, a number of Cairns’s former teammates and sporting rivals, including former Australian captain Ricky Ponting and former Black Caps Shane Bond, Chris Harris, Kyle Mills and Andre Adams, gave evidence for the prosecution.
In order to convict him, the jury must be sure Fitch-Holland knew Cairns and Vincent were involved in match-fixing and also that he asked Vincent to provide a false statement. It is possible, given all the allegations – unfounded though the jury found them to have been – that cricket would have no urgent desire to find a place for Cairns within it. He may yet have to face another civil case which Modi is considering after new evidence heard during the last nine weeks.
In 2010, Mr Modi’s tweet accused Mr Cairns of match-fixing while captain of the Chandigarh Lions in the now-defunct Indian Cricket League in 2008.
Cairns told the court he may have used that phrase, but would have been referring to endorsements and sponsorship opportunities.
McCullum has come under fire for taking three years to report the alleged approaches by Cairns, who said he had “questions to answer” in the wake of his acquittal. Regardless of the verdict, Heal said he was pleased that New Zealand cricketers were prepared to speak out about the issue in court, saying his organisation was “in good spiritual and ethical health”.
“I don’t think in acase like this there are any winners”, said Cairns. “It’s been hell for everyone involved”.
The now 45-year-old Cairns became a major celebrity in his homeland and a staple of the gossip magazines.
He added: “It’s my choice”.
“I couldn’t guarantee that Lou Vincent is not a changed man. I think he sincerely wishes to change his life round, but the problem was that, in his previous life, he’d done so many things that he was ashamed of that the jury really looked at that first, probably”.
“I think that’s consistent with a process where statements are taken at different times”.
Cairns told media he would think about Modi “next week”.
He said: “There’ll be some players sitting back there thinking ‘well why would I do that? We are talking about a long time ago”.
“My thanks and my family’s thanks go to the jury for reaching the verdict they did”.
But he described his initial confusion over the jury’s verdict as he was unable to hear from the dock.
They finally retired on Tuesday to start debating whether to acquit or convict Cairns and co-accused Andrew Fitch-Holland, but had only three hours together before being sent home.
His legal team have been given 21 days to apply for to have his expenses recouped.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) acknowledged the verdict in the perjury trial in a brief statement.
“The ICC and its (Anti-Corruption Unit) will proceed to work intently with and supply all attainable help to gamers so that the battle towards corruption may be tackled successfully and collectively”.
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The ICC also said that it would not make any further comment on this matter.
