As far as roller-coaster cricket careers go,there are few like Lou Vincent, who took the world by storm with a century and a half-century on his debut against Australia at Perth's WACA Stadium in 2001. While Vincent soon became New Zealand's regular opener across formats and hit his peak with a double ton (224) agaisnt Sri Lanka in 2005, Vincent's career graph nosedived and he last played international cricket aged 29 (2007).

Vincent's decision to join the rebel Indian Cricket League (IC) where he played for the Chandigarh Lions proved costly and saw him lose his contract with the New Zealand Cricket Team. In 2013, it emerged that the International Cricket Council (ICC) was investigating him for match-fixing in various leagues including the ICL by the Anti Corruption Unit (ACU).

In 2014, he admitted his guilt and was handed a life ban by the England Cricket Board (ECB) which prevented him from playing all forms of cricket in any tournament sanctioned by the ECB, ICC or any other national cricket federation.

In an interaction with the Telegraph.co.uk, Vincent opened up the aftermath of his conviction and claimed that family members turned against him and revealed he was alienated from his daughter.

. “Some members of my family have been turned against me, which I have had to live with, but I have faith that time heals a lot of wounds. Being alienated from my two daughters will always be the most devastating thing. And I’m hoping, over time with little bits I do in public, my girls will see that Dad made mistakes, and they’ll hopefully see me as a good guy and reconnect with me," said Vincent.

“The other thing is just losing the guys who I played cricket with. I want to eventually go back to England to possibly give back to the game whatever way I can to rekindle some of the friendships I’ve crushed because of my involvement in fixing.

“Losing respect in the cricketing world is something that has been hard, but again, self-inflicted. I’ll never make an excuse or blame anyone else apart from myself. So we’ll see where it takes me. Today could be a start," Vincent added.

Vincent revealed that he had to face abuse from people aroun his town and house with people labelling him a cheat.

“I’ve had abuse. One was a guy driving past me on the side of the street in Auckland. He said: ‘Oh, f--- off, Vincent. You cheat.’ And I was like: ‘Yeah, fair enough.’ And the second time was down in Lumsden. Our neighbours decided to get very drunk at the pub one night. It was three of them, me, and my wife to be and after I bought them a drink to wish them Happy New Year they decided to drink the drink and then turn around tell me that ‘we don’t want you in this f---ing town’. ‘You’re a disgrace to New Zealand sport and you’re a cheat.’ They started coming at me, pushing me out of the pub," said Vincent.

Vincent made a stunning revelation and conceded that he contemplated taking his own life and claimed he understood why people that route. The former New Zealand cricketer claimed he suffered from depression and it took him years to find love for himself again.

“It was like the knock-on effect from the match-fixing, then the family court and my kids. It was very touch and go. Even four years ago, I was like, ‘what’s the point in life?’. Constantly getting punched and kicked down. And then it was just like, ‘hang in there," said Vincent.

“Suicide has been my mindset, even as early as when I was 27. And it was always in the back of my mind. I totally understand why people do it. Because you just want a release. You want to be away from the pain. If you don’t do that, you either drink and take drugs to sort of mask it, but the powerful thing is, you just need to embrace the feeling of that depression and that anger and that hate and go through the stages of rehabilitation to a certain point of finding love for yourself, because that’s the only way you can really properly heal. It’s taken many years to love myself," he added.

Vincent opened up on his upbrining and claimed that he was always looking to be loved while conceding he lacked the mental package to be a professional sports player. Vincent claimed that when he came to India, he was deeply suffering from depression and got caught into the fixing world.

“I literally raised myself from the age of 12, so I was always quite malleable to people around me. Because I wanted to be loved, you’re easily led astray. And, you know, that contributed massively towards my professional career of just wanting to be liked, wanting to be loved, and sort of sharing how I was feeling on tour. If I was a little bit homesick or not scoring enough runs, I would tell the coach, the captain and then all of a sudden you get dropped because they think he’s not going to give 100 per cent for New Zealand tomorrow, because he’s a little bit lonely.

“So I didn’t have the mental package to be a professional sports player. So at 28 I was deeply in depression and then went to India, and was dragged, sucked into that fixing world. It was pretty easy to see how it happened. I felt like I was part of a gang. It almost made me feel better, because I’m thinking: ‘I’m part of a match-fixing gang, I’m with a group that’s going to have my back and nobody knows our little secret.’

“I think that’s how most bike gangs work with young kids. Yeah, they sort of groom young kids into ‘we’ll look after you but go drive that car through the shop and smash it up’. When you’re in that world, it’s hard to get out. There’s always a very underlying threat of ‘we know you, we know your kids’. You know, there’s never a direct threat. But they make it very clear that they’re involved with some pretty heavy underground gangs. And, ‘you owe us, and you always will owe us’. Even if you’ve completed the fixing, they own you. It’s hard to get out, and the only way to get out was literally the way I did [confess]," said Vincent.

Vincent's ban was lifted by the ECB earlier this year. The New Zealand star, who played 23 Tests and 103 ODIs currently lives in a remote part of New Zealand's North Island near Ninety Mile Beach and makes a living 'doing up old s---ty houses.'

“Most of my clothes are from the op shop [charity shop] because I will only get paint on them. It is why I wear converse shoes to a formal event. I don’t have anything else. Sandals, converse or bare feet," said Vincent.

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