Lou Vincent opened a can of worms

In a one-day international against the West Indies at Auckland's Eden Park in 2006, Lou Vincent had a minor wardrobe malfunction. Patrolling the square leg fence, Vincent sprinted towards his right to stop a ball that was rapidly heading for the boundary. As he dove full length to prevent the ball from crossing the rope, he lost his pants. But any doubts over his commitment to the team's cause dissipated that very moment. He brilliantly fielded the ball and threw it back with just his underpants on, as the crowd behind him looked on with part embarrassment, part hilarity.

This week, we realised that Vincent wasn't only committed to the craft of fielding, a discipline he was fairly good at - he had also pledged his allegiance to the curly-haired, multifaceted Chris Cairns, the closest New Zealand have come to producing a quality all-rounder since Richard Hadlee. According to his testimony in a London court, Vincent underperformed during the 2008 season of the now-defunct Indian Cricket League on the behest of his boyhood hero. Vincent also named former Indian batsman Dinesh Mongia as a part of the racket, alleging that the Punjab left-hander was heavily involved in fixing matches during that season. The three players were teammates at the Chandigarh Lions. Cairns allegedly paid Vincent $50,000 each for the three matches in which he underperformed.
 
In the last few years, Vincent has garnered the inglorious reputation of being a habitual offender when it comes to matchfixing. In 2014, the 36-year-old was banned from all forms of cricket for life by the England and Wales Cricket Board after he confessed to fixing a county game between Sussex and Kent in 2011. A day after his contemptible expulsion from the game, Vincent gave an interview to Newztalk ZB, a New Zealand radio station, saying that he was a cheat and he had disgraced the country with his actions. Little did he know that his ordeal with match-fixing allegations was far from over.

But it wasn't always like that. On his Test debut in 2001, Vincent blazed his way to a century against Australia on a pacey deck at the Waca in Perth. The Australian bowling line-up that day comprised Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Brett Lee and Jason Gillispie.

The Kiwi top-order, till then, was largely unsettled. Matt Horne, Mark Richardson and Matthew Sinclair had all been tried alongside Nathan Astle - the mainstay of their batting- but with little success. Many at the time felt that in Vincent, skipper Stephen Fleming had found a reliable opener who could score at a brisk pace.

A career that took off on such a promising note plummeted just as fast. His mercurial ability soon gave way to inconsistency. In the little over 100 ODIs that he played for his country, Vincent averaged a middling 27.11. His Test career lasted just 23 matches. After his retirement from international cricket, Auckland-born Vincent plied his trade in the county circuit in England, turning out briefly for Lancashire, Worcestershire and Northamptonshire. He also has to his name the highest individual score by a Kiwi in ODI cricket - a 172 he scored against Zimbabwe in 2005. His last noticeable contribution for New Zealand was a whirlwind hundred against lowly Canada at the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean. Later that year, he reportedly slipped into depression. Vincent will forever be remembered for being a player with massive unfulfilled potential.

Vincent's testimony is crucial for Cairns, who faces up to six years in jail for lying under oath during a cheating case in 2011. But Vincent's career could have been much more than courtroom battles and anti-depressants.

The man could have become a star. What a waste of talent.