Cricket star jailed for drug smuggling

Former England cricket star Chris Lewis has been jailed for 13 years for smuggling cocaine - and cynics might say it is his dramatic fall from grace that will finally give the public something to remember him by.

The 41-year-old was caught with £140,000 worth of the drug when he and basketball player Chad Kirnon were stopped at Gatwick on their way back into Britain from St Lucia in December last year. The pair were found to be carrying several tins of fruit and vegetables that had cocaine dissolved in them.

Lewis, who made a brief return to professional cricket in 2008 with Surrey, admitted buying and smoking cannabis while in St Lucia but said that he was "completely innocent" of the charge of knowingly smuggling drugs, and claimed he had no idea that cocaine could be converted into liquid form. But both he and Kirnon, 27, were found guilty and given 13-year sentences for conspiring to import drugs after a trial at Croydon Crown Court.

As a player Lewis, who played 32 Tests for England, had enormous potential but it was never quite realised. Cursed early in his career with the soubriquet 'the new Botham' (one of many to bear that particular cross) he never evolved into the destructive force that England had hoped for. On his day he was a world beater with bat, ball or in the field - but his days were few and far between and the closest he came to matching Botham was in tabloid coverage.

In 1994 he achieved notoriety for being forced out of an England match in the West Indies with sunstroke after shaving his head and deciding not to wear a sunhat, the Sun labelled him 'the prat without a hat'.

He also posed nude in a women's magazine, arrived 40 minutes late for a Test match and upset many on the county circuit after match-fixing allegations were made in 1999 when he made allegations that three England team mates had taken money for match fixing, a charge that was never substantiated. He retired soon after.

Former teammate Angus Fraser described Lewis as "a pretty complex character on the cricket field" adding he only achieved a percentage of what he could have done as a cricketer.

"As a person, Chris liked the nice things in life, the clothes and the cars, but once his playing days were over, his means of income was reduced. He needed the money and it appears he got dragged into something like this. It's very sad," he added.