New Zealand skipper Brendon McCullum has revealed before a court in London that he felt shocked when his idol, Chris Cairns, approached him regarding fixing a match.
1. "I was scared to come forward to say a guy I looked up to, idolized in my time in the New Zealand cricket team, had asked me to fix a match.”
2. The 34-year-old current captain told the jury that Cairns had approached him three times in total, saying that players like Daniel Vettori and Jacob Oram 'did not have the balls to do it'.
3. He told McCullum that Lou Vincent and Daryl Tuffey were working with him at the Chandigarh Lions, in the unsanctioned Indian Cricket League.
4. On asked why he failed to report the first alleged approach, McCullum claimed that he didn't want the incident to be true, adding that he looked at the former all-rounder as a friend, the Guardian reported.
McCullum, the big-hitting opener, subsequently reported the allegations to cricket's anti-corruption authorities in February 2011 after Cairns made his third approach three years back.
Cairns, who had represented New Zealand in 62 Tests and 215 ODIs, saw his reputation take a beating when the former Indian Premier League chairman Lalit Modi accused Cairns of match-fixing while he was playing for the Chandigarh Lions in the now defunct Indian Cricket League in 2008.
Although Cairns brought a libel action against Modi and successfully sued him for $2.14 million, prosecutor Sasha Wass said that there was evidence to prove Cairns had been involved in match-fixing and had lied about it under oath.
While Cairns is charged with perjury and perverting the course of justice, his lead adviser Andrew Fitch-Holland is accused of perverting the course of justice. However, both the accused have denied the charges.
