Chris Cairns confidently reassured Lou Vincent's wife that "everyone" was match fixing in India, and he and her husband were not going to get caught, a court has been told.
Giving evidence at the New Zealander's perjury trial in London on Monday, Vincent's ex-wife, Eleanor Riley, said her husband confided in her in 2008 that he was cheating for Cairns, and told her he had approached other players to try to get them involved.
Ms Riley said she raised her fears about the fixing with Cairns during a night out in England with him, Vincent, Cairns's then-girlfriend, and former England captain Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff.
"I said that I was concerned because they were involving so many players, I said they were going to be caught, they were being greedy," Ms Riley told the court.
"Chris said they weren't going to be caught, that everyone was doing it in India. He was very confident about it."
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Flintoff was on the other side of the bar during the match-fixing talk, Ms Riley said, "and totally unaware of what we were talking about".
However, the defence contended that the conversation never happened, with Cairns's lawyer Orlando Pownall QC suggesting to Ms Riley that her story was "infected by the fact that you and others had had excessive amount to drink".
Mr Pownall suggested there was an incident that night when Ms Riley was crying in the toilets with Cairns's wife.
Responding to the accusation, Ms Riley said: "Absolutely not. I remember because I'd hate my make-up to be smudged, and I wouldn't want to cry."
Vincent gave evidence last week that he fixed games under orders from Cairns, and detailed a particular match in which he failed to underperform as instructed.
Ms Riley also described the aftermath of that game and how Vincent had called her crying, saying he had "stuffed up a game for Chris".
"He just said that he'd cost him a lot of money by not playing well or by not playing badly."
Vincent was angry because he did not think he was going to be paid the $US250,000 owed to him by Cairns, and Ms Riley said Vincent became increasingly angry about the money he was owed.
"Lou absolutely hated Chris", she told the court.
Ms Riley also gave evidence that Vincent said the local players in his Indian Cricket League side were involved.
"He said they were threatened by Chris that if they did not do the match-fixing, that they would never play cricket again," she said.
"That he could ensure that their careers would go badly afterwards."
Having divorced Vincent in 2012, Ms Riley said the pair have a bad relationship and her ex-husband had warned her not to try to bring what he had told her about match fixing into their divorce.
"He said 'If you ever intend to say anything to anyone about what I've been doing, I'll make sure you'll go down with me, and you'll lose the children'," Ms Riley said.
When questioned about her motives for giving evidence against Cairns, Ms Riley said she had no reason to support Vincent in court, and denied having received any sort of deal in exchange for her taking the stand.
"And I most certainly wouldn't come to a perjury trial to lie," she said.
