Cam's Corner: Match fixing cuts to legitimacy of heroics

Chris Cairns in action

FORGET Chris Cairns, Lou Vincent and whoever else is accused of match fixing - think of the fans.

Having grown up a cricket fan and felt the pain of lost matches along the way, I feel ripped off.

An early memory of mine is watching the Black Caps against Australia and in classic Kiwi style we were there or there-abouts, but always needed an injection to get over the line.

Cue Chris Cairns, at the time a man-machine with the ability to turn a game. Or so we thought.

I remember my mum explaining that Cairns was a born match-winner, and would go into a yarn about his old man, Lance, thrashing his Excalibur bat around in the final 10 overs.

Chris Cairns says he is innocent.

However, it makes me question the legitimacy of his heroics.

What makes it worse is that without us, the fans, these cricketers wouldn't be the celebrities they are today.

Cairns has already won a defamation case over match fixing allegations, but his name continues to come up.

Black Caps captain Brendon McCullum's testimony on Thursday has me wondering if the feelings I felt in those close wins and losses were in vain.

McCullum's testimony described how he rebuffed an approach by a cricketer dubbed Player X . Player X has been identified as Chris Cairns, which he conceded in later tweets.

However, Cairns maintains allegations seen in leaked testimony from McCullum and Lou Vincent are lies.

Maybe we are naive in New Zealand and like to think this wouldn't happen in our neck of the woods.

Either way, I still feel cheated. And, no doubt too, I am not the only one feeling that way.

The whole thing is a bit of a shambles - not good for the youth of today to be reading about it.

In years to come, our young cricketers could now be clued on to to this underbelly and go looking for cash over ethics.

Cricket has always been known as a gentlemen's game, where players are upright and honest, but these allegations tend to throw that idea out the window. Even with the gentlemen's game tag being questioned, it is important to not let a few bad apples spoil the bunch.