Fixing the whistle-blowers, not the match-fixers

Flogging aside, Chris has happy memories from county cricket. Like a lot of the old pros he misses the camaraderie. When he walked into the Arundel dressing room there was hearty back-slapping and high-fives; this for the man who shook up English cricket with claims of match-fixing and was ostracised for it.

Lewis recalled the turbulent year of 1999 clearly. "People have an idea of Chris Lewis because of this. All I did was report a conversation I had with a man I was approached by [Lewis does not name him]. My story was corroborated by Stephen Fleming. The same bloke approached Fleming and offered him money to organise match-fixing. I went straight to the ECB. People still think I named people. The strange thing was that everybody I knew, as in friends, wasn't saying: `Chris, what have you done now?' They were saying: `What are they trying to put on you now?'

"I was naïve. If me and my manager had done our homework we'd have noticed the guy who blows the whistle gets dicked on. I'd got myself in a very precarious position. I wasn't best buddies with the ECB. I'd had run-ins with them before. I didn't want to be a whistleblower. I knew people saw Chris Lewis as a troublemaker. He was the one driving a flashy Mercedes. People would think he's consorting with these types [match-fixers]. I thought `Oh no, oh no, we can't have this.' I met my solicitor and manager. I had to go to the ECB. I was compromised once I had met these guys involved in match- fixing. I wasn't being brave. I was covering my back."