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Former New Zealand cricketer Chris Cairns has won a libel case against a former Indian Premier League boss who accused him of match-fixing.
Lalit Modi has been ordered by High Court Judge David Bean in London to pay Cairns £90,000 pounds in damages.
Cairns, 41, sued former Indian Premier League (IPL) boss Modi over a post he made on Twitter in January 2010, accusing him of match-fixing in the 2008 season of the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL).
The high-profile former Black Cap said the claim was untrue and therefore libellous, and had damaged his reputation.
Justice Bean announced his judgement on Monday night at the High Court in London, saying Modi "singularly failed to provide any reliable evidence that Cairns was involved in match-fixing or spot fixing."
Modi will also have to pay costs to be determined at a later stage.
Cairns returned to Australia last week so was not expected in High Court today. Modi is also not at the London court. Both would have known the decision in advance.
Cairns said in a statement that the verdict "lifts a dark cloud that has been over me for the past two years."
The former cricketer also said he feels great joy because his past career remains intact, and added that "I can once again walk into any cricket ground in the world with my head held high."
Cricketers Gaurav Gupta, Rajesh Sharma and Tejinder Pal Singh gave evidence on behalf of Mr Modi but the judge said it was not to be believed and he said hearsay evidence from two other players, Amit Uniyal and Love Ablish, was "inconsistent and unreliable".
"Even if I were applying a simple balance of probabilities test, the plea of justification would fail in both respects," he said.
The judge said he had increased the damages from the starting point of £75,000 to £90,000 to reflect the "sustained and aggressive" actions of Mr Thwaites, who had used the words "lie", "liar" and "lies" 24 times in his closing speech.
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