Former New Zealand all-rounder Chris Cairns diagnosed with bowel cancer

New Zealand cricket great Chris Cairns said that he had been diagnosed with bowel cancer five months after suffering a spinal stroke following emergency heart surgery.

Cairns was only discharged from hospital last week, five months after he underwent a life-saving heart operation and was then paralysed by a subsequent stroke.

“I was told yesterday I have bowel cancer… big shock and not what I was expecting after what was supposed to be a routine checkup,” Cairns wrote on Instagram.

“So, as I prepare for another round of conversations with surgeons and specialists, I keep remembering how lucky I am to be here in the first place… and how blessed I am to have all that I do in my life.

“… Another fight ahead, but here’s hoping this one is a swift uppercut and over in the first round.”

Cairns played 62 Tests, 215 one-day internationals and two Twenty20 matches for New Zealand between 1989-2006. His father, Lance, also played cricket for New Zealand.

He has lived in Canberra with his wife and children for several years.

After retiring from international cricket he was the subject of allegations of match-fixing in India as captain of Chandigarh Lions in the defunct Indian Cricket League (ICL) in 2008.

The 51-year-old had undergone life-saving treatment for a torn artery and suffered a spinal stroke in late August that left him paralysed from the waist down.