Cairns, 41, sued Modi, the former head of the lucrative Twenty20 IPL, an Indian domestic franchise tournament featuring many of the world’s leading players, over an “unequivocal allegation” posted on the Twitter social networking site in January 2010.

Judge David Bean said Modi had “singularly failed” to provide any reliable evidence that Cairns was involved in match-fixing or spot-fixing, or even strong grounds for suspicion of cheating.

“It is obvious that an allegation that a professional cricketer is a match-fixer goes to the core attributes of his personality and, if true, entirely destroys his reputation for integrity,” he said.

“The allegation is not as serious as one of involvement in terrorism or sexual offences (to take two examples from recent cases). But it is otherwise as serious an allegation as anyone could make against a professional sportsman.”

Cairns, who captained his country in one-day international matches, was not in court on Monday to hear the ruling of the judge, who heard the case without a jury.