“I don’t let it bother me,” he added. “Maybe they’re scared.”

If controversy and regret seem to follow Mr. Lawson, it is clear that he is unconcerned by the past. He still has the regal bearing of a top-flight athlete, even while eating a low-key dinner at an Applebee’s in Bedford-Stuyvesant. He ordered cranberry juice and grilled salmon, one of the menu’s healthier items, with a request that no sauce or cheese be added. The Metropolitan Cricket League season runs until Oct. 12, and Mr. Lawson’s club is expected to compete for the championship. “People say I can’t train or exercise as much here,” he said, “but I’m still very disciplined.”

Mr. Lawson said he had grown to enjoy New York but has moments when he yearns for home. “I still haven’t had any good Jamaican food here yet,” he said. When the jerk chicken his dining companion ordered arrived, he laughed and pointed to the cup of tangy white sauce accompanying it. “That needs jerk sauce,” Mr. Lawson said.

His other complaint is with the pace of the city, which he, of all people, finds too fast. “In Jamaica there’s more time to relax,” he said. “Here, everyone is busy all the time. There is no time to relax, even if you want to.” The closest he feels to home is when he visits the South. “People sitting on porches,” he said. “I like that.”

Mr. Lawson is open about some basics of his life in the city, but seems to value privacy. He drives a BMW and wears a nice watch. He does not currently have a full-time job, he said, describing himself as akin to a freelance cricketer, playing for American teams that fly him around the country to locales with lively immigrant cricket communities. As a professional cricketer for several years, he may well have been highly paid. “I’m a dad,” he offered at one point. “You can say that.”

Offers to play professionally, he said, are not rare in coming, but he explained: “I don’t want to do it just to do it. I have a reputation.” After finishing his meal, he pulled up a message from a stranger on his phone: a female fan in Barbados who had found him on Facebook and was curious about his whereabouts. “Why don’t u play international cricket anymore?” she wrote. “I miss u.”

“I’m living in New York,” he wrote back. “I’m sorry ur not able to see me play.” He was flattered, but the question seemed to fatigue him. “People keep asking me, ‘Will you come back?’ ” Mr. Lawson said. “I could go back. But my life is here now.”