“I think I felt greedy for the first time in my life”

Disgraced cricketer Lou Vincent was motivated by greed, his disappointment at the end of his New Zealand international career and the feeling he could not say ‘no’ to his ‘hero’ to agree to get involved in fixing matches, reported media from England.

The 35-year-old top-order batsman was banned from cricket for life on Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to 18 breaches of the England and Wales Cricket board’s anti-corruption regulations in three matches in England.

“I think I felt greedy for the first time in my life,” Vincent has been quoted a  daily from England. . “I probably had a chip on my shoulder over my career, I left New Zealand pretty heart broken and a bit angry at the system. As the match fixing world opened up to me… I thought ‘yeah, I’m going to make big money now, so stuff the world’.”

Vincent was first approached while playing in a rebel T20 competition in India in 2008, where he was invited to attend a meeting with a local businessman to discuss promotional endorsements of cricket gear. At the meeting, however, he was offered the services of a prostitute and a large stack of US dollars.

He said he realised what was being offered, turned both down and then met a friend he was playing with — who Vincent referred to as his hero — about the approach. “I remember him saying ‘that’s a good cover because now you’re working for me’,” Vincent said. “There was no way I could say no, the person I was working for was a huge role model to me.” He was then told how spot fixing worked and what to do for each match. “In my case because I was at the top of the order it was bat 20 balls and score 10-15 runs then get out. Simple as that.”

Vincent, however, made an error in one match when he accidentally hit a six while attempting to get out as planned. “I got the phone call to come meet the person I was working for. He sat me down on the bed, walked away and got a cricket bat… he was walking towards me with a killer look and I thought ‘this is pretty serious’. I was really surprised that he didn’t follow through and hit me.”