Once a shining star of New Zealand cricket, Chris Cairns' fall from grace saw the charismatic all-rounder transition from national hero to council worker. The 55-year-old was a beloved figure in the sport, having played in 62 Tests from 1989 to 2004, scoring over 3000 runs and taking 218 wickets.

Upon retiring from all forms of cricket in 2006, Cairns was honoured as an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit. His retirement was compared by local media to that of NBA legend Michael Jordan and tennis icon Bjorn Borg.

However, his life took a dramatic turn when he was embroiled in a match-fixing scandal, leaving him penniless and forced to take a job paying £7 ($17) an hour to cover his legal expenses.

In 2014, former cricketer Dion Nash told the New Zealand Herald that Cairns had been reduced to driving a council truck and cleaning bus shelters around Auckland.

Cairns was accused of attempting to rig games in India while captaining the Chandigarh Lions in the short-lived Indian Cricket League. Despite these allegations, Cairns was never found guilty and vehemently denied any wrongdoing.

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In March 2012, Cairns won a libel case against Lalit Modi, the former Indian Premier League commissioner. Modi had claimed on X, formerly known as Twitter, in 2010 that Cairns had been involved in match-fixing during 2008, leading to Cairns being awarded costs and damages.

However, the match-fixing allegations were just the beginning of Cairns' troubles. On August 21, 2021, he suffered an aorta tear leading to heart failure and was urgently airlifted to a Sydney hospital from his home in Canberra.

This terrifying experience resulted in a spinal stroke that left Cairns paralysed from the waist down, along with multiple organ failures.In a devastating twist of fate, only a few months later, he was diagnosed with bowel cancer.

Cairns underwent surgery to have a stoma fitted, a procedure that creates an opening in the stomach for waste removal.

Speaking to the New Zealand Herald, Cairns opened up on his traumatic journey. "I got my life back [after having the stoma]. I can go out, eat what I like, drink what I like, be social again," he said.

The news of his paralysis also hit him hard. He candidly admitted: "It dawned on me: the diagnosis, the situation I was in - in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. Because you're a former professional athlete who was once one of the best in the world."

Cairns now dedicates his time to coaching cricket to children, but confessed that accepting his wheelchair-bound reality is challenging.

"I know I'll never go into the net again and have a bat," he revealed. "I'll go past a window, see my reflection as I'm wheeling myself down the street and it shunts you a little bit."

During his cancer battle, Cairns underwent multiple surgeries and endured a year of rehabilitation and chemotherapy. In 2023, he spoke to the Between Two Beers podcast about how his mental resilience helped him navigate various challenges since retiring from cricket.

"I'm no different from anyone else... there's no secret recipe. It's choice, fundamentally," he said. "The human race is gifted with an asset in the mind that allows you to choose your reaction to any situation.

"That is the most important thing you possess, and at times, people don't tap into that. It's easy to be a victim, easier for it to be someone else's fault... to be unlucky."