To the fans who had followed cricket during the late 90s and early 2000, Chris Cairns is a very common name. He was hailed as one of the best all-rounders in the world during his playing days. However, his career came to a halt when he was named as one of the match-fixers. Several former players of the New Zealand team like Lou Vincent and Brendon McCullum revealed that the star all-rounder had approached them with propositions of fixing matches for money.
However, the former Kiwi cricketer has gone through a very tough time recently. The 51-year-old was on life support and was paralyzed from below the waist after he suffered a stroke during one of his four open-heart surgeries in 2021. He was also diagnosed with bowel cancer earlier in 2022.
After coming back from a battle with death, Cairns has spoken about his experience. He said that the past few months have made his mentality strong.
While speaking on a podcast hosted by NZME, Cairns said- “I harbored a lot of anger and frustration, but I carried that silently. I dug my hole in Australia and got on with life…but I was angry. 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 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.â€- Cairns added further.
Speaking of Cairns’ career, he played for New Zealand from 1989 to 2007. He played 62 Tests and 215 ODIs for the Black Caps. In Test cricket, he scored 3320 runs and picked up 218 wickets, while in ODIs he scored 4950 runs, picking up 201 wickets.
