New Zealand batsman Lou Vincent (R) drives a delivery as he is watched by South Africa wicketkeeper Mark Boucher during his 90 run innings in their One Day International at the Newlands stadium in Cape Town, South Africa October 28, 2005. REUTERS/Howard Burditt
Former New Zealand player Lou Vincent opens up about his battle with depression and how it led to him getting involved in a match-fixing scandal in the early 2000s in what was known as the Indian Cricket League at the time.
“So I didn’t have the mental package to be a professional sports player. So at 28, I was deeply in depression and then went to India, and was dragged, sucked into that fixing world. It was pretty easy to see how it happened,” Vincent recalled speaking to The Telegraph.
“I felt like I was part of a gang. It almost made me feel better, because I am thinking: ‘I am part of a match-fixing gang, I am with a group that’s going to have my back and nobody knows our little secret,” he added.
“I literally raised myself from the age of 12, so I was always quite malleable to people around me. Because I wanted to be loved, you’re easily led astray,” he conceded.
“And, you know, that contributed massively towards my professional career of just wanting to be liked, wanting to be loved, and sort of sharing how I was feeling on tour,” the former Kiwi player said.
“If I was a little bit homesick or not scoring enough runs, I would tell the coach, the captain and then all of a sudden you get dropped because they think he’s not going to give 100 per cent for New Zealand tomorrow, because he’s a little bit lonely,” he revealed.
The 46-year-old started his career with a blistering ton against Australia. As he got involved in the match-fixing saga his career had to come to a premature end at the age of 29 after representing New Zealand in 23 Tests and 108 ODIs. In the year 2014, he was given 11 life bans by England Wales Cricket Board.
“When you’re in that world, it’s hard to get out. There’s always a very underlying threat of ‘we know you, we know your kids’. You know, there’s never a direct threat. But they make it very clear that they’re involved with some pretty heavy underground gangs.
“And, ‘you owe us, and you always will owe us’. Even if you’ve completed the fixing, they own you. It’s hard to get out, and the only way to get out was literally the way I did (confess),” added Vincent.
“Coming clean and approaching the players’ association and telling them what was happening, ‘where do we go from here?’, was the start of turning it around. The ECB were great to deal with,” said Vincent who now has the permission to be involved in domestic cricket.
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