JOHANNESBURG - Chris Cairns has gone through enough off-field drama in the past week: now he wants to at last stamp a mark on his final World Cup.
Cairns yesterday broke his prolonged silence over the Durban nightclub incident as he reflected on a rollercoaster day in which he was convinced
his New Zealand team were "dead and buried".
The tense atmosphere in the New Zealand team room at their Johannesburg hotel was almost too much for Cairns, who had built up from recovering for much of last year from major knee surgery to be firing in time for cup duty.
The players gathered together to watch television coverage of the game in Durban.
"I was one of the walkers. We had some pool players, some smokers, some people pacing up and down, we had other people lounging on the floor," Cairns said.
"Once the rain came that was the longest 30 minutes, just waiting. You could sense in the background there would be some home officials trying to get the game going."
When the match was finally called off there were wild celebrations in the New Zealand camp.
The Black Caps lost their opening match to Sri Lanka but have since beaten the West Indies, South Africa, Bangladesh and Canada, which should have been enough to qualify in any tournament.
"We haven't played bad cricket. We had a bad first game where we got our tactics wrong. Other than that we've got everything right," Cairns said. "To have gone home and not fired a punch in the next round would have been devastating."
Metaphorically speaking, of course.
The only punch Cairns has heard about was the one that flattened him outside the Tiger Tiger club in Durban little more than a week ago. It earned he and team-mate Brendon McCullum a $500 fine for their alcohol-fuelled antics.
Cairns said he had been mortified to think that the World Cup might suddenly end for him after days of off-field distractions.
"It was difficult; not so much now but prior to the Bangladesh game, it was pretty tough.
"I'm human and fallible. It was probably too excessive and we've been punished for that but I still say there is a time and place to enjoy life, even during a World Cup.
"There's also professionalism and I don't think that evening our professionalism was up to scratch."
Billed as New Zealand's matchwinner, Cairns has played a relatively minor role so far with innings of 32, 37, 33 not out and 31, along with four expensive overs with the ball.
"It's been pretty big for me and I'm yet to fire a shot.
"I've still got a few more bullets in the gun. Nathan [Astle] is due for something big, Dan [Vettori] is buzzing away, [Shane] Bondy is raring to go," Cairns said.
"The great thing about this team is that we have at least five or six matchwinners."
- NZPA
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JOHANNESBURG - Chris Cairns has gone through enough off-field drama in the past week: now he wants to at last stamp a mark on his final World Cup.
Cairns yesterday broke his prolonged silence over the Durban nightclub incident as he reflected on a rollercoaster day in which he was convinced
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