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Your support makes all the difference.Chris Cairns was paid more than $250,000 (£150,000) by a pair of Indian diamond dealers in return for fixing the outcome of cricket matches, prosecutors said at his perjury trial in London yesterday.
Cairns, who moved to Dubai in 2008 towards the end of his cricket career to look for opportunities after he retired, claimed the money was to set him up in the rough diamond business in partnership with the father-and-son combination of Vijay and Vishal Shah, the owners of diamond business Vijay Dimon.
Cairns was uncooperative in the face of questions from prosecuting barrister Sasha Wass QC, to the extent that at one point the judge, Justice Sweeney, intervened to remind him: “Your obligation is to answer the question.”
The former New Zealand captain said he had met Vishal Shah at a charity cricket event and he had intended to work for his business by meeting clients, speaking at dinners and acting as an ambassador. But Wass said: “I am going to suggest it was a reward for your part in fixing matches.”
Wass said that, while playing for the Chandigarh Lions in the now defunct Indian Cricket League, Cairns had told fellow cricketers Lou Vincent and Brendon McCullum they could earn tens of thousands of dollars for fixing games, and that “everyone was doing it”.
As Cairns repeatedly denied the suggestions, she added: “You had a piece of the pie, didn’t you? You had a very fat piece of the pie.” Cairns replied: “I was trying to create a career post-cricket, trying to become involved in their business.”
Wass challenged Cairns to explain why a range of New Zealand cricketers and former team-mates, including Vincent (who is now a confessed match-fixer serving a lifetime ban), McCullum – the current captain – Shane Bond, Andrew Hall and Vincent’s ex-wife Elly Riley, had formed what he described at his police interview last year as a “conspiracy” against him.
Cairns replied that his own barrister, Orlando Pownall QC, would provide the explanation, but he added that, with regard to McCullum, “Brendon has done what is best for Brendon”.
The perjury charge against Cairns stems from his successful suing for libel of Indian businessman Lalit Modi, who in 2010 accused Cairns on Twitter of fixing matches. In that trial, he said under oath he had “never, ever cheated at cricket”, a claim that has been challenged in this case by a long list of players.
“Mr Modi was the most powerful man in world cricket,” Cairns said, when asked why he decided to sue Modi. “It was like a death sentence when he sent that tweet out. It was a wrong that needed to be righted.”
Cairns said that since his association with match-fixing his “name had become toxic” and that it had been impossible for him to earn a living. “I don’t have any skills outside of the media,” he said. “There was a scorched earth scenario for me. I was labouring and really just trying to make a buck.”
The trial continues.
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