The problem with a case like this is that it is clear a good number of people saw this as a proxy match-fixing trial, as if a guilty verdict on a very different charge (or charges) would somehow make all the scary shadows on the fringes of the game disappear under the white light of justice.
Well, that's not how justice works, and it's most certainly not how this case worked. If anything, the return of a not guilty verdict has, at best, made the International Cricket Council's anti-corruption unit look decidedly Keystonian in its attempts to root out the nefarious elements in the game and, at worst, given the impression that it is happy to let someone else clean up the mess.
Chris Cairns may now begin the process of cleaning up the mess he has faced as a result of the allegations that were made against him, but that would make one tidy room in a very shabby house.
Head of the New Zealand Cricket Player's Association, Heath Mills, was quite right yesterday when he said, "This will make people think twice before they come forward with information in the future for not just cricket but sport in general when it comes to fighting match-fixing". This was not a statement on the Cairns verdict, but one on just how far out of the gate this horse has been allowed to bolt.
Mills' comments need to be taken seriously. How many cricketers have been too afraid to come forward in the past? And if they have been so spooked before by the prospect of providing evidence to investigators, how can they possibly have the confidence to come forward now? A criminal trial such as this is no place to conduct an investigation; it is a terrifying prospect for anyone to take the stand in a criminal proceeding.
Chris Cairns has already successfully sued for libel and has now been found not guilty on charges stemming from that 2012 case against Lalit Modi. Modi may well take civil proceedings against Cairns but, for now, the former Black Cap is quite correct to say that he has twice been through the British justice system and has twice emerged on the right side. The ICC's anti-corruption unit, meanwhile, has been hit for six.
When Cairns said yesterday that there were no winners in this case, he was only half right. He and his friend and advisor Andrew Fitch-Holland, who was also found not guilty of attempting to pervert the course of justice, are most definitely winners. They have been handed their freedom and can now go about rebuilding their lives. The sport, its administrators and the reputation of the game, however, have taken another body blow.
This was a trial that gave the impression of being a vanguard action against the alleged cheats of the game, but ultimately it was nothing of the sort. It was a trial about what constituted the truth and what constituted a lie.
Ultimately, and sadly, the sport itself got no closer to exorcising its biggest demon -- match-fixing. And the day it can say it is no longer haunted by the ghosts of match-fixing seems a very long way away.
