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Cricket star Lewis accused of smuggling £200,000 drugs
Justin Davenport, Crime Correspondent10 Dec 2008
FORMER England cricketer Chris Lewis was remanded in custody today charged with smuggling £200,000 of cocaine into Britain.
The fast bowler was arrested at Gatwick yesterday after arriving on a flight from St Lucia.
Lewis, 40, and basketball player Chad Kirnon, were both charged with drug smuggling after cocaine was allegedly found in a solution hidden in fruit tins in luggage.
They were held after what the UK Border Agency described as a routine search. The cricketer, who played 32 Tests and 53 one-day internationals for England in the Nineties, was remanded until next Wednesday at Crawley magistrates court.
A spokesman for the UK Border Agency said Lewis, of Brent, and Kirnon, 26, of Islington, arrived together on a flight which landed at 6am.
He added: "They had arrived on a flight from St Lucia and border agency officials were carrying out checks on the baggage from that flight. During the course of that search they discovered the cocaine in fruit tins."
Born in Guyana, Lewis picked up 93 wickets in his test career and was also known for his combative batting style. A half-century and six wickets in an early Test against the then-mighty West Indies in 1991 had England cricket fans thinking they might have found an heir to all-rounder Ian Botham.
But as his career went on, Lewis became better known for incidents off the field than performances on it.
The Sun christened him the "Prat without the Hat" in 1994 when he shaved his head on tour in the West Indies and suffered sunstroke, as a result missing the first match of the series. He was also ridiculed for posing in his underwear for a magazine. Lewis began his career at Leicestershire and had spells at Nottinghamshire and Surrey, where he helped the team win limited-overs competitions in 1996 and 1997.
After drifting out of the first-class game and spending several years playing league cricket and coaching, Lewis made a surprise return to top-flight cricket this year with Surrey in the Twenty20 competition. He impressed with his fitness though not with his figures - his first two-over spell against Middlesex going for 24.
Nicky Brown, national leagues manager of England Basketball, said Kirnon was registered with the London Towers team in the 2005-06 season.
The team play in the English Basketball League second division, a lower level amateur division. A spokesman for the Towers said he had no recollection of Kirnon having played for them.
