He had joined the Indian Cricket League, and was the captain of the Chandigarh Lions till its closure in 2008.

[3] Cairns was a destructive batsman who could hit sixes straight down the ground and in his earlier days was an intelligent fast-medium bowler.

[4] Since then, persistent injuries have forced him to drop his pace and rely more on his hard-to-read slower ball.

Cairns knocked Shane Warne out of Australia's bowling attack during a 2000 test in Wellington when he launched several sixes out of the Basin Reserve and onto the adjacent street.

[citation needed] He became only the third player to score a century in a Champions Trophy final after Philo Wallace and Sourav Ganguly.

[12][13] Cairns' career-best bowling performance in Tests was 7/27 against the West Indies in 1999, and he is New Zealand's sixth highest wicket taker in Tests, after Richard Hadlee, Daniel Vettori, Tim Southee, Trent Boult, and Chris Martin.

Cairns played for the ICC World XI and scored 69 off 47 balls before being stumped by Kumar Sangakkara off the bowling of Muttiah Muralitharan.

Sidharth Monga writing in 2009 that Cairns' career returns "were a poor justification of his prodigious talent.

[17] In the 2005 Queen's Birthday Honours, Cairns was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to cricket.

The New Zealand Herald compared his retirement to those of Michael Jordan and Björn Borg on 15 February 2006.

[25] He is alleged to have attempted to manipulate games in India when he was captain of the Chandigarh Lions in the short lived Indian Cricket League.

[28][29] New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum also told the Anti Corruption and Security Unit (ACSU) of the International Cricket Council that Cairns made a match fixing approach to him.

[30][31] Cairns insists that he has never fixed a match, saying Vincent wanted to "mitigate his sins by blaming others" and taking issue with McCullum having waited three years before approaching the ICC.

[35][36] On 12 September 2014, the Metropolitan Police announced that they would charge Cairns with perjury stemming from the Modi libel trial.

Croser, an Australian, had played basketball in the USA before working for a sports marketing group in Sydney.

[42] On 10 August 2021, he was reported to be on life support after suffering a major heart attack resulting in aortic dissection in his home in Canberra, Australia about a week prior.