From cricket star to Dubai diamond dealer

BY SARAH CATHERALL

Chris Cairns spent half his life on a cricket pitch - these days, the only time he picks up a bat is when he plays with a social cricket team in Dubai.

For the past two years, the former matchwinning all-rounder has been keeping his head down as he reinvents himself in the United Arab Emirates. Among the cricket world, he has been seen to disappear to Dubai. And his life is dramatically different from what it was even just a few years ago.

Runs and wickets have been replaced with textbooks and diamonds, as 40-year-old Cairns relaunches himself as a diamond trader. He is also on his third marriage, to Mel Croser, a former Australian basketball star turned marketing executive. His sons, aged six and eight, now live with their mother, Carin, in South Africa.

Says Cairns: "When you've committed so many years to sport, it's often the easy track to coach or go into sports administration. It's been really tough starting from zero.

"I spent half my life playing cricket. But I had to retrain myself to life after cricket. I still have a strong tie back to New Zealand."

For someone who was so successful on the pitch, Cairns has struggled with aspects of his personal life. His first marriage to his childhood sweetheart, Ruth Leslie, failed early on; his four-year marriage to Carin ended shortly before he met Croser in January 2008.

But his third marriage, says Cairns, will be an enduring one. "Mel is a wonderfully motivated woman - beautiful, spirited and with a minimal tolerance for the mundane."

The former cricketer is willing to talk about all these changes, but there's one taboo subject - his reason for quitting professional cricket.

In October 2008, he was suspended on what was described as "disciplinary grounds" after he captained the North India-based cricket team, the Chandigarh Lions, in three matches.

Since then, Cairns has had a rough ride. One of cricket's most powerful names, the wealthy Indian Premier League commissioner Lalit Modi, alleged that Cairns had been involved in match-fixing in the 2008 Indian Cricket League (a privately run cricket tournament), and Cairns is still fighting to clear his name.

He's been paid out by a website, Cricinfo, which printed the claims, but back in March, said that Modi's comments "completely destroyed me within the cricketing environment".

He tells The Dominion Post that he needs to keep comments to a minimum. But the legal claim was served to Modi's British lawyers in June, after they had no joy sending the original claim to him in India in February.

Says Cairns: "We are in the process of applying to have the case heard in the UK. Modi's lawyers are seeking to have the court case moved to India."

Cairns had gone to India after retiring from the New Zealand test team in 2004. India is the most wealthy and powerful cricket nation in the world, and cricketers who play there can be set up for life.

While it's never been reported what Cairns earned, Shane Bond signed a three-year contract for US$800,000 with the same organisation, the Indian Cricket League. But in return, rebel cricketers were barred from international cricket as the league wasn't officially sanctioned.

So we're talking on the phone about the world of gems and his new Dubai-based life, while the sport which made him a household name in New Zealand and in India and the Middle East isn't given the prominence of the past.

Cairns and Croser shifted to Dubai about two years ago after he was offered a job through contacts who worked at Vijaydimon, a diamond trading company with offices around the world. The couple chose Dubai because they wanted to be near Britain, where Cairns played most of his games and has friends, and also because Dubai was a neutral place where they could start again.

"There are fantastic restaurants and hotels. There's a real glitz to the place because everything is brand new," he says.

"Diamond trading is a very tough market to get into but it's a strong trade to learn. I looked at the opportunity and the market too. It's a rare commodity."

His days are spent learning about the different grades of diamonds, and looking after 57 accounts to which he supplies rough and polished diamonds. This is the first time Cairns has studied since he left high school - he attended a gemology institute in Thailand as part of his training. He openly admits that he never had the time or headspace to learn anything else when he was a professional sportsman. In fact, before this, he had delved outside cricket just once, when he ran a fudge business - Cairns Fudge - with his father, former international cricketer Lance Cairns.

Life in Dubai is glitz and glamour - buildings are new and gleaming and expats abound. Cairns has made friends, and the only bat he picks up is when he plays with the social cricket team he founded with an Irishman and Welshman. "That's the extent of my cricketing," he laughs.

"I'll always miss playing and the emotions, too."

He doesn't have domestic help, though most expats do. But if you imagine his rented home is packed with trophies and certificates, think again. A couple of framed photographs are memories of his sporting career, but Cairns says: "I'm more of a moment man, rather than surrounding myself with what I used to do."

He still gets recognised and stopped by Indians and Pakistanis in Dubai. While New Zealanders are generally more respectful of his space and privacy, he says: "To describe Indians as cricket mad just doesn't do them justice. The Indians are amazing with their general knowledge of the game. They have no qualms about coming up and saying gidday."

His boys, Thomas and Bram, see their father in the school holidays, and during the football World Cup went across from Johannesburg to Dubai for a month. He says: "We have been very thorough in making sure they understand what's going on. They think it's really cool that they have two houses . . . It's a situation that nobody can judge. It's your life and you make the most of it."

He's doing that in Dubai, and has a couple of other things "on the go" which he won't yet reveal.

Cairns is driven to succeed, both on and off the field. When asked to mention his career highlights, he says: "It's always winning. I played to win."

But there are two he's particularly proud of: New Zealand's victory at Lord's in 1999, and his score of 102 not out when the team played India and won the Champions Trophy in Kenya in 2000.

"There was a period under [captain] Stephen Fleming . . . where we were among the best in the world."

He's putting that same determination and energy into fighting for rail safety in New Zealand. In 1993, his sister Louise was killed near Christchurch, when a truck went across a railway crossing and slammed into the train she was on. Since then, safety has become a personal crusade for Cairns, who set up a foundation to teach schoolchildren about the dangers at unmarked crossings.

He is in New Zealand this week for Rail Safety Week. Cairns is particularly concerned about the stress on train drivers when a vehicle or person is hit.

"They're Kiwi guys who go to work wondering if they'll kill anyone. As much as you look at a train and it's a huge big expanse of steel, there's a bloke driving it. If you're thinking of screaming around the rail barriers, if you're hit, there's a guy at the wheel who has to run back to the scene. There's a human element and it's getting that through," he says.

As part of his campaign to raise the profile of rail safety, he walked 1000 kilometres from Auckland to Christchurch in August and September 2008, to the site of his sister's death. On the Cricinfo website, Cairns said in March that the walk gave him injuries that saw the ICL cancel his contract because of "fitness issues".

"My knees were particularly damaged but it was my left ankle which gave me most trouble and meant my cricketing performance was hampered. While I indicated to ICL at the time of my dismissal that I was unhappy with their decision, I understood and respected that their main priority was to have a reputable competition."

He returned home and had surgery on his left ankle, hoping to regain his ICL contract, but the league since folded. He was asked by the IPL to put his name forward for the 2010 auction - one of 97 players to do so - but his name was removed, and Modi's allegations were aired.

Cairns said back in March that he was keeping his distance from former team-mates, after offering to help young players but being rebuffed by New Zealand Cricket.

He tells The Dominion Post that his offer of help is still there, and he has already spoken with a group of Canterbury emerging players who were in Noosa on a training camp this year. "Here's hoping the guys picked up something and found it useful."

He hopes things will return to normal after the legal action. His lawyer, Andrew Fitch-Holland, said in March: "Chris believes he has no future in any form of the game. He feels he's been made a pariah. He said to me today, 'That's me finished in cricket for the next 30 years.' He's devastated, he's angry."

Cairns played 62 tests and 215 one-day internationals. His last match for the Black Caps was against the West Indies in 2006. For now, he doesn't know how long he and his wife will live in Dubai, but his sights are on England as their next home.

"My career is here for now, and where it takes me we'll have to see. But I think we'll end up back in the UK as I spent so much of my cricket career there.

"We're still young enough to be able to move globally and our future will be in the northern hemisphere."

- © Fairfax NZ News