Chris Cairns: I harboured anger and frustration
Former New Zealand all-rounder Chris Cairns spoke publicly for the first time about the court battles he fought between 2012 and 2015. He said he could talk candidly about it now that he had survived multiple health scares.
“I harboured a lot of anger and frustration, but I carried that silently. I dug my hole in Australia and got on with life, but I was angry. But now, after the last seven months, it’s so far down my thinking. It’s not a priority. It seems like another time, another place,” he told media company NZME.
“Maybe during that time it (the matchfixing trials) built up the steel in me that allowed me to survive what I went through — because it was about survival at that time. I was on my own, cast as the villain, that was my role,” he said.
Cairns underwent a trial for perjury — related to charges against him of matchfixing — in the U.K. in 2015 and was acquitted of all charges.