Perjury accused Cairns lied, 'threatened teammate with bat', court hears

Former New Zealand captain Chris Cairns threatened a team mate with a bat for scoring too many runs in a fixed match and then through a friend pressured him into lying during a libel action, a London court has heard.

The all-rounder, who represented New Zealand in 62 Tests and 215 ODIs, saw his reputation take a beating when the former Indian Premier League chairman Lalit Modi accused Cairns of match-fixing while he was playing for the Chandigarh Lions in the now defunct Indian Cricket League in 2008.

Although Cairns brought a libel action against Modi and successfully sued for 2.14 million dollars, prosecutor Sasha Wass said that there was evidence to prove Cairns had been involved in match-fixing and had lied about it under oath, Sport24 reported.

Wass also told the jury that Cairns' co-accused, Andrew Fitch-Holland, a lawyer and his 'lead adviser', approached team-mate Lou Vincent to make him lie during the libel action.

However, both the accused have denied the charges.