Cairns refuses to fudge the issue (4 August 1999)

4 August 1999

Cairns refuses to fudge the issue

Charles Randall

Chris Cairns has his eye on producing The Great Kiwi Fudge Bar, foil-wrapped confectionery, to secure his future when his playing career ends. In the meantime, he will presumably continue to parcel up wickets for New Zealand on his own conveyor belt, as he did against England in the second Test recently.

Cairns's six wickets pushed England downhill in their first innings at Lord's, a blow from which they failed to recover, and New Zealand's series-levelling victory counts among the sweetest memories of the all-rounder's life - with the sugar part still very much in the future.

Speaking after nets before the third Test at Old Trafford, which starts tomorrow, Cairns said he expected the game to be completely different from Lord's, but he hinted that his own brand of showy aggression would continue.

He said: "After the performance we gave there we have to go higher again to compete. I've always been aggressive on the field, and if I'm on top of my game the others can feed off that.

"I've got respect for England. During the last Ashes tour I thought they handled themselves pretty well. It's just that sometimes the opposition are allowed to play better cricket."

Cairns and his father, Lance, the former New Zealand all-rounder, bought into a small Canterbury fudge business a couple of years ago. "It's going really well. I'm always conscious of having something there when you finish."

Lance, in charge of cooking the fudge, has missed this tour and could not savour at first hand New Zealand's maiden victory at Lord's, where he never made a Test appearance himself. Chris said: "He normally comes over but he's too busy and he can't leave the business."

At 29, Cairns is his country's senior player in terms of service length. Since the reorganisation of the governing body - "the whole of New Zealand cricket is going in the right direction now" - he has lost the angry young man image. He is relaxed, physically imposing and has never been dropped in 10 years of Test cricket but, owing to frequent injury, tomorrow's match at Old Trafford will be only his 39th cap.

Cairns is sure his seasons at Nottinghamshire, where he began as a scholarship player 11 years ago before leaving in 1996, wore him down physically, though the benefits included his now famous slower ball, learnt from Franklyn Stephenson, the county's Bajan all-rounder with whom he shared a house in his early days.

By an unhappy coincidence another Trent Bridge player, Chris Read, became the most bewildered and talked-about victim of Cairns' slower ball after ducking and being bowled by a half-volley at Lord's.

Moin Khan is likely to be named as the replacement for the suspended Wasim Akram as Pakistan's captain within the next few days.

Sources close to the Pakistan Cricket Board said the wicketkeeper was likely to take over after Wasim, along with batsmen Ijaz Ahmed and Salim Malik, was suspended following match-fixing allegations.

The PCB are now being run by an ad hoc committee after the board were also suspended following investigations into the scandal.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)