Lou Vincent has told a London court how his once idol, Chris Cairns, got him involved in match fixing and threatened him with a cricket bat when he accidentally performed well.
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After telling the trial he wanted to come clean about his match fixing – which he alleges Cairns got him into – he altered his story on the prostitute under cross examination by Orlando Pownall, QC.
The pair met at a petrol station on the M1 motorway near Nottinghamshire, where Cairns was playing professionally, where they were seen by global umpire Steve Davis.
After being dropped from the New Zealand team in 2007, Vincent said he suffered from depression and went to play for the Chandigarh Lions in the ICL, a franchise of which Cairns was the captain.
Vincent said he was not interested in gambling, and could not recall using the accounts to bet.
“I was aware that she was available for sex… that was when the penny started to drop”, he said.
Cairns allegedly told Vincent to approach Loye to under-perform in a game between Lancashire and Durham to “earn his trust back”.
“I was under direct orders from Chris Cairns to get involved in fixing”. “I am not proud of what has happened at all … it’s hard for me to live with what’s gone on”, Vincent said in the Skype call recording heard in the court, according to the Guardian.
Vincent said that he was initially approached to fix matches by an Indian bookmaker called Varun Gandhi, who offered him a huge sum of money as well as the services of a woman to bring him under the cover.
In 2010 Cairns was accused by the chairman of the Indian Premier League, Lalit Modi, on Twitter of match-fixing at the Chandigarh Lions two years earlier.
But he had been involved in match-fixing and lied about it under oath, the court was told.
His barrister in the libel action, Andrew Fitch Holland, denies a charge of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
Vincent said that at the time he was “on a high” and “felt good” about his role in fixing.
He said he was “mentally unstable” at the time and “felt good to be part of a gang”.
“It completely caught me off guard”.
Mongia, however, denied the allegations levelled against him by Vincent and said that he had “zero links with any Kiwi player”. Vincent spilled the beans on several of Cairns” shenanigans and also claimed that teammate Daryll Tuffey and Indian all-rounder Dinesh Mongia were also part of their “gang’ that was allegedly involved in fixing.
Vincent told the court he never received any money from Cairns apart from $US2,500 in cash Cairns gave him and Daryl Tuffey for spending money on a trip to Dubai.
He left the hotel room devastated that he had destroyed his friendship with Cairns, whom he idolised.
“I was very anxious”. “There were four games I fixed for Cairns in the April/ May tournament”, the Daily Mail reported. “It was a pretty harrowing experience really”.
Mr McDouall said he believes Cairns’ personal circumstances would have had to change for him to cheat at cricket.
“I was under instructions to fix”.
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Vincent has since been banned for life from cricket after admitting to fixing matches in the ICL and English county competition. McCullum was reportedly first approached by Cairns in a hotel while he was with the Kolkata Knightriders of the IPL, and again in a café in Worcestershire in the United Kingdom.
