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Former Australian Test cricketer Stuart MacGill has opened up about his harrowing kidnapping ordeal where he was stripped naked, bashed and threatened with garden shears.
The former legspinner supplied drugs for a deal between his regular dealer and his brother-in-law in April 2021, which led to his violent kidnapping.
The 54-year-old knew the cocaine was worth $330,000 but he was oblivious to the fact that a one-kilogram brick had changed hands.
Jurors found him not guilty of taking part in a large commercial drug supply but found him guilty of the lesser charge of supplying an indictable quantity of cocaine.
He was sentenced to an intensive corrections order of one year and 10 months.
The lucrative cocaine deal put MacGill on the path to his violent kidnapping after his drug dealer stole two bricks of cocaine in a drug ripoff.
Stuart MacGill has opened up about his shocking kidnapping ordeal
The cricket great was driven from his home, stripped naked and bashed
'Person A stole drugs off Person B,' MacGill told The Howie Games podcast.
'And I was blamed for that.
'I can only assume that because people involved believed I had lots of money, because of international cricket, but that certainly wasn't the case. I've got two cents to my name.'
Person A stole the drugs after giving the group dummy money consisting of a vacuum-sealed block of paper with $50 bills on the outside.
'They said "we know you've got nothing to do with this, we just want a chat", but it became pretty obvious pretty quickly that we weren't just driving around the block,' MacGill said.
'So, [we] drove for about an hour and a half to somewhere I've never been before, told to strip naked and then hit... beaten up and then questioned.
'Demands were made of me... you know, like "give me money" and stuff like that. I said, "I haven't got any".
'Naked sitting on the floor in a shed in the bush. There were like clippers next to me, garden shears next to me, as in "We're gonna take your fingers off".
MacGill (pictured with Shane Warne) says there were times during the ordeal where he thought he may die
The cricket legend (pictured with Joe Root) says he tries not to think about the kidnapping or else he will get nightmares
'After they bashed me a bit, I was out there for an hour or so, maybe two hours I guess.'
MacGill said he was trying to appear as calm as possible, but his mind was running wild thinking about how he should act.
He believed that the kidnapping was an 'extortion thing' and therefore probably wouldn't be killed, but admits that there were times when he thought he 'was gone'.
MacGill was finally given his clothes back and dropped in the Belmore area of Sydney's inner west, where he waved down a cab.
'I jumped in the back of a cab - I thought I'll get in the cab and deal with the money later. The guy (driver) was a Muslim and was on Ramadan, so it was about midnight, so he was eating for the first time,' said MacGill.
'And about half way through he said to me, "Are you OK, sir?" because I was bleeding and probably a bit teary as well. I said, "It's alright, it's just a family thing".
'He said, "Would you like to come and eat with my family?" I said, "No, I'll just go home". He didn't make me pay for the cab fare. It was a pretty good end to a pretty sh**ty night.'
MacGill, who says he was both traumatised and terrified by the ordeal, said his next step was to get out of Sydney for a couple of months until arrests were made.
The cricket great says he tries not to think about the incident too often because he will get nightmares.
MacGill retired from cricket in 2008 after playing 44 Tests during which he claimed 208 scalps.
