Dinesh Mongia, Indian middle man, prostitute in Vincent’s testimony

Shortly after arriving in Chandigarh,Vincent said he received a call from an Indian named Varun Gandhi. ‘He told me he was involved in a cricket bat company,’ Vincent told the court. ‘We met in his hotel room but there was no equipment in the room.’ He said that there was a woman seated on the bed, and that after 20 minutes he asked if he could use the toilet and Gandhi followed him there, and told him that the woman ‘was available for sex’ and was ‘a present from our company’. “He pulled out a wad of American dollars, and said it was a sponsorship down payment, that’s when alarm bells began to ring,”said Vincent. “I left that room knowing it wasn’t a sponsorship deal.” Later, under cross-examination, Vincent admitted that he had, infact, slept with the prostitute during his first contact with Gandhi.

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‘A piece of the pie’

After meeting Gandhi, Vincent said he spoke to his agent who managed a number of other New Zealand cricketers. Neither reported the fixing approach. Vincent told the jury it was because the ICL was unsanctioned by the ICC and didn’t have any formal reporting lines for corruption. He said he then visited Chris Cairns to talk about what had happened. “Chris was obviously interested and then there was a pause, for a short period of time, then he turned to me and said: ‘You’ve done the right thing. Right, that’s good cover. You’re working for me now,’” recalled Vincent. Vincent says Cairns quickly steered the conversation turned to one about match fixing conversation and how each of them could get a “piece of the pie.”

‘50,000 dollars per game’

Vincent told the court he was offered a sizeable sum by Cairns to underperform. “I recall he’d pay me $50,000 for every game that was fixed…There were four games I fixed for Cairns in the April/May tournament. I played between eight and 12 games. In three or the four games I was instructed either on the bus or at breakfast,” he said. Vincent however said he was never paid by Cairns for any of the four games he fixed, but did get US$2500 when on a trip to Dubai with Cairns and Tuffey for an ICL match.

‘A sense of belonging’

Lou Vincent told the jury that he had accepted Cairns’ alleged approach to fix games because it gave him a “sense of belonging” at a time when he was battling depression. He said that he went innocently to the ICL and that he looked up to the ‘charismatic’ Cairns: ‘I thought with having a fellow Kiwi in charge of the team, I was going to be looked after… and I’ll never have to worry about money again,” he said. According to Vincent six members of the Chandigarh Lions were in on the match fixing — Cairns, Vincent and Kiwi fast bowler Daryl Tuffey, and three Indian players including Dinesh Mongia. Mongia, for his part, denied the allegations. “What he (Vincent) said is incorrect. I was not involved in any match-fixing. I played for the Chandigarh Lions but I don’t know what the New Zealanders (Cairns, Tuffey and Vincent) were doing,” Mongia said.

‘Getting out is hard’

“I was under instructions to fix. When you are underperforming you just play dead bat shots, play more defensive, you can control your scoring tempo but the actual art of getting out is actually quite hard. One of the easiest ways is to get run out, hit the ball to a fielder and keep running. Try to get stumped. Miss a straight ball,” Vincent told the court. “I didn’t master the art of getting out very well.

‘Chris held bat above my head’

Vincent says he fixed four games while playing for the Chandigarh Lions. While the first three went according to plan, the fourth was ‘a disaster’. His job was to score 10 to 15 runs off 20 balls, then get out. Vincent says that when he was on 16 or 17 runs and about to face a left-arm spinner, he decided to lose his wicket by getting stumped. Vincent told the court that he charged down the pitch, “but the ball did something funny” and he smashed the ball back over the bowler’s head for six. Later at the hotel, Vincent said, “Chris grabbed a bat and started twisting his hands, he went to hold the bat above my head and that’s when it was ‘oh dear, this could be it’. I had clearly messed up his fix for that day. It was a harrowing experience really.”