Tale behind Chris Cairns' downfall: Former all-rounder cleaning bus stops for $17 a day
The star player will have testing times ahead as his fate will be decided at end of the month
By : r. mohan
Update: 2014-09-19 00:26 GMT
Chennai: It is with a degree of cynicism that the tale of Chris Cairns cleaning bus stops for $17 a day is being received in the world of cricket.
The whisper in Australian cricket circles is this may be related to the crucial court case the swashbuckling all-rounder is soon to face in the UK where he as well as his manager and lawyer has been charged with perjury. The matter also relates to the libel case against former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi in which he was awarded £90,000 damages by the UK court.
Cairns had done well as a cricketer, both as his country’s leading all-rounder as well as on the English county scene and the Indian Cricket League. It is the ICL that has returned to haunt him as the rumours of his being left out of the rebel league in 2008 for possible dalliance with gamblers and bookmakers were to put him on the road to his decline.
It is not possible to believe that Cairns has spent so much that he has to work for $17 an hour cleaning bus stops although the kind of legal costs involved in UK lawsuits are bound to burn any litigant’s purse.
It is his tussle with Brendon McCullum over the impending perjury trial that has put the matter squarely in the spotlight now. It was no secret that McCullum had pointed his finger at Cairns with regard to match-fixing whispers when he was a witness before the ACSU. Restraint orders have been flying around New Zealand to stop what is seen as a possible attempt to discredit the star witness.
Only by the end of the month will it be clear how serious the charges are against Cairns and whether he will indeed be declared a perjurer, much like the famous author of serial bestsellers and Conservative politician Jeffrey Archer was in a UK court.The inside story is the times ahead are going to be really testing for the star player who once batted on virtually one leg to beat India to a title in East Africa.