IPL 2022: Former NZ Cricketer finally opens up on match-fixing trials after surviving multiple health scares- check out

Canberra-based Cairns told the podcast the health battles carried a silver lining – helping cleanse his mind of the dark feelings that had hounded him since 2015.

“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. Maybe during that time it (the match-fixing 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. Building that resilience up, who’s to say that wasn’t a contributing factor in helping me fight.”

In March 2012, Cairns successfully sued former Indian Premier League commissioner Lalit Modi for libel, after Modi alleged on Twitter that the New Zealander had been involved in match-fixing in 2008. Cairns won costs and damages.

The Metropolitan Police later announced charges of perjury and perverting the course of justice against Cairns, stemming from the Modi libel trial. It put him under the international blow torch for eight weeks at London’s High Court, late in 2015. He would ultimately be acquitted. Despite losing all cricket-related work in the wake of a trial he described as “horrendous”, Cairns says he doesn’t regret taking action against Modi.