Lou Vincent (born 11 November 1978) is a former New Zealand

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

er and opening batsman. He has represented

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

Test match Test match in some sports refers to a sporting contest between national representative teams and may refer to: * Test cricket * Test match (indoor cricket) * Test match (rugby union) * Test match (rugby league) * Test match (association football) ...

, One Day International and

Twenty20 International A Twenty20 International (T20I) is a form of cricket, played between two of the international members of the International Cricket Council (ICC), in which each team faces a maximum of twenty overs. The matches have top-class status and are the ...

cricket as well as playing for

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about ...

in New Zealand domestic cricket and

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see H ...

and

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancash ...

in English domestic cricket. In December 2013 it emerged that Vincent was being investigated by the

International Cricket Council The International Cricket Council (ICC) is the world governing body of cricket. Headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, its members are 108 national associations, with 12 Full Members and 96 Associate Members. Founded in 1909 as the ' ...

's anti-corruption unit (ACSU) in relation to allegations of his involvement in the spot-fixing of dozens of professional cricket matches, including matches in the

Indian Cricket League The Indian Cricket League (ICL) was a private cricket league funded by Zee Entertainment Enterprises that operated between 2007 and 2009 in India. Its two seasons included tournaments between four international teams (World XI, India, Pakistan ...

, the

ECB 40 The ECB40, last known as the Yorkshire Bank 40 (YB40) for sponsorship reasons, was a forty-over limited overs cricket competition for the English first-class counties. It began in the 2010 English cricket season as a replacement for the Pro40 ...

, the Bangladesh Premier League and the

Champions League Twenty20 The Champions League Twenty20, also referred to as the CLT20, was an annual international Twenty20 Cricket competition played between qualifying domestic teams from some major cricketing nations. The competition was launched in 2008 with the f ...

. In June 2014, the Bangladesh Cricket Board found him guilty for not alerting authorities that he had been approached and banned him for three years. On 1 July 2014, he accepted that he was involved in match fixing on many occasions. The

England and Wales Cricket Board The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is the national governing body of cricket in England and Wales. It was formed on 1 January 1997 as a single governing body to combine the roles formerly fulfilled by the Test and County Cricket Board, ...

imposed a lifetime ban on Vincent playing in any form of cricket, applying to sanctioned matches by the ECB, the

or any other national cricket federation.

Early and personal life

Vincent was born in Warkworth, New Zealand and is the son of well known

ABC NewsRadio ABC NewsRadio, since 2017 broadcast under the ABC News brand and for a short time known as ABC News on Radio, is a 24-hour news radio service broadcast by the Australian public broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). ABC ...

sports announcer Mike Vincent. Vincent became interested in cricket at an early age as his father used to represent Eden Roskill Cricket Club of Auckland in first grade cricket and took Lou to all the international matches at Eden Park. At the age of 15, his parents separated with Mike and Lou moving to Adelaide in Australia where Lou began playing in the age-tournaments. After Vincent was left out of several important age-group games by his coach, he decided to move back to New Zealand at the age of 18. When Vincent returned to New Zealand he had the opportunity to play for New Zealand in the 1998 Under 19 Cricket World Cup. He played for Esholt Cricket Club of the Bradford Cricket League in England during the off season while continuing to play for

in New Zealand domestic cricket. He also considered jockeying as a career and has umpired Australian Rules football.

Domestic career

First-class cricket

Vincent played for

from 1997 to 2008 competing in the

Plunket Shield New Zealand has had a domestic first-class cricket championship since the 1906–07 season. Since the 2009–10 season it has been known by its original name of the Plunket Shield. History The Plunket Shield competition was instigated in Octob ...

First Class competition, the Ford Trophy Domestic One Day competition and the HRV Cup Twenty20 competition. In 2006, Vincent signed for

to play county cricket for part of the English season. He had a fine debut on 25 June, making 83 from 91 balls to help set up a 50-run win over

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other English counties, functions have ...

in the

C&G Trophy The Friends Provident Trophy was a one-day cricket competition in the United Kingdom. It was one of the four tournaments in which the eighteen first-class counties competed each season. They were joined by teams from Scotland and Ireland. La ...

. Lancashire League side Ramsbottom announced that they had signed Lou Vincent as a professional for the 2008 season despite strong interest from the Australian domestic side Southern Redbacks in signing him. Vincent replaced the previous club professional, Sunil Joshi. Vincent had also played for

Central Lancashire Cricket League The Central Lancashire Cricket League (CLCL) was a fifteen team cricket league, traditionally based in Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire. It was then based in Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire. The league ran competitions at First T ...

side

Rochdale Rochdale ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, at the foothills of the South Pennines in the dale on the River Roch, northwest of Oldham and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough ...

in 2005 where he had an impressive league tally for the season of 656 before having to miss the last 10 games of the league after being called up for New Zealand's training camp ahead of a series in Zimbabwe. Whilst playing for Ramsbottom, Vincent signed for

as a replacement overseas player for the duration of the 2008

Twenty20 Twenty20 (T20) is a shortened game format of cricket. At the professional level, it was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003 for the inter-county competition. In a Twenty20 game, the two teams have a single inn ...

tournament. He replaced Mohammed Yousuf as the club's overseas player, who himself had replaced the Australian Brad Hodge – both were on International duty. Lancashire's cricket manager, Mike Watkinson, said that the club ''"have brought in a player with a great reputation in the format who will add firepower to our top order. He is an exciting player and excellent fielder, just what we need for Twenty20 cricket"''. Vincent made his debut during the Championship game at Old Trafford between Lancashire and Nottinghamshire. He made 5 in the first innings and 19 in the second innings with the match finished in a draw. Vincent made his Lancashire Twenty20 debut against Leicestershire hitting 31 from 26 balls with Lancashire won the game by 52 runs. During Lancashire's seventh Twenty20 group game against Derbyshire at Old Trafford Vincent hit 102 from 63 balls which included 11 fours and three sixes with a strike rate of 161.90. Lancashire won the game by 9 wickets and Vincent was named man of the match. Through this innings Vincent became the fourth Lancashire player to hit a Twenty20 century, the previous players being

Mal Loye Malachy Bernard "Mal" Loye (born 27 September 1972), is an English former cricketer who played first-class cricket for Northamptonshire, Lancashire, and England A. Loye is a right-handed batsman, particularly well known for his slog sweep shot ...

, Stuart Law and Brad Hodge. The innings came after Vincent was controversially dropped for the Yorkshire home game 72 hours earlier which Lancashire lost by 4 runs at Old Trafford. Vincent followed this up by hitting 56 from 36 balls in Lancashire's eighth Twenty20 group game against Nottinghamshire at Old Trafford. The innings included 9 fours and one six with a strike rate 155.56. Vincent won the man of the match award for the second time in three days and helped secure Lancashire's qualification to the Quarter Finals where they were drawn to play Middlesex. Lancashire succumbed to a narrow defeat by 12 runs and were eliminated from the tournament. Lancashire announced that Vincent was to stay on at the club as their overseas player for the remainder of the 2008 season. Brad Hodge, Lancashire's Australian designated overseas player for the 2008 season, could not return to play for Lancashire due to the ill health of his wife. Hodge had been playing in the

Indian Premier League The Indian Premier League (IPL), also known as TATA IPL for sponsorship reasons, is a men's T20 franchise cricket league of India. It is annually contested by ten teams based out of seven Indian cities and three Indian states. The leagu ...

and for Australia during their tour of the West Indies and was due to return to Lancashire. In 2010 Vincent played for Northants in the T20 competition. In the 2011 season Vincent represented Sussex for all forms of the game.

International career

A right-handed batsman, Vincent made his

debut in 2001–02 when he opened the batting against Australia at

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth i ...

. In a bizarre New Zealand first innings of 534/9 declared which saw four players make hundreds but no one else reach double figures, Vincent made 104. He followed this up with 54 in the second innings. In 2005–06, Vincent hit 172 in a One Day International against

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and ...

Harare Harare (; formerly Salisbury ) is the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 940 km2 (371 mi2) and a population of 2.12 million in the 2012 census and an estimated 3.12 million in its metropolitan ...

to set a new record for the highest individual innings for

in ODIs, beating

Glenn Turner Glenn Maitland Turner (born 26 May 1947) played cricket for New Zealand and was one of the country's best and most prolific batsmen. He is the current head of the New Zealand Cricket selection panel. Early life Glenn Turner was born in Dun ...

's 171 not out against East Africa in the 1975 World Cup. Vincent's innings came off just 120 balls, and included 16 fours and nine sixes. Vincent was recalled into the New Zealand squad for the Commonwealth Bank Tri Series due to the sudden retirement of veteran Nathan Astle midway through the series. Once in Australia he became New Zealand's most prolific run scorer, with three consecutive half centuries, contributing to three consecutive totals of over 290. Vincent played in the early stages of the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean but after scoring a century and fielding well he caught a blow in the nets from Shane Bond and fractured his wrist. He was replaced in the squad by

Hamish Marshall Hamish John Hamilton Marshall (born 15 February 1979) is a former New Zealand cricketer, who played all formats of the game for New Zealand. He is the identical twin brother of James Marshall. Hamish and James became the second pair of twins (a ...

. After being dropped from the national team due to the implementation of a rotation policy and despite his good form Vincent suffered from

Major depressive disorder Major depressive disorder (MDD), also known as clinical depression, is a mental disorder characterized by at least two weeks of pervasive low mood, low self-esteem, and loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities. Intro ...

and his contract with New Zealand Cricket was then later terminated with his signing for the

Chandigarh Lions Chandigarh Lions was one of the nine teams in the defunct Indian Cricket League. They were one of the six founding teams and were the runners-up in the inaugural Twenty20 Championship, which was won by Chennai Superstars. The team represented Ch ...

of the

cited as the reason. Some commentators have mentioned unfair treatment of Vincent by the then New Zealand coach

John Bracewell John Garry Bracewell (born 15 April 1958) is a former New Zealand cricketer who was most recently the coach of the Irish national team. He played 41 Test matches between 1980 and 1990, as well as 53 One Day Internationals. He was the second N ...

as the main cause for his departure from the national team.

Awards

* Vincent has won five One Day International and one

Man of the Match awards. * Vincent has won two

Man of the Match awards while playing for

in English domestic cricket. * Vincent won Lancashire's Player of the Month award for June 2008.

Achievements and records

* Vincent equalled the most runs scored in boundaries (118 runs in boundaries) by a batsman in an ODI innings, when he scored 172 against Zimbabwe on 24 August 2005. * Vincent became only the sixth New Zealander to make a hundred on Test debut, and only the second to achieve the feat on foreign soil. * Vincent was chosen to represent the ICL World XI team during the 2008 ICL season.

Life ban for match fixing

Lou Vincent was banned from cricket for life on 1 July 2014 by the

for match fixing, after he admitted 18 breaches of the regulations including fixing the outcome of Sussex’s match against

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

in 2011, along with Naved Arif, who received a life ban one month before him.Lou Vincent match-fixing apology puts Chris Cairns on spot
/ref> Vincent released a statement on the day he received the life ban, admitting his involvement in match fixing.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Vincent, Lou 1978 births Living people Auckland cricketers Lancashire cricketers Worcestershire cricketers Suffolk cricketers New Zealand One Day International cricketers New Zealand Test cricketers Cricketers who made a century on Test debut New Zealand cricketers New Zealand Twenty20 International cricketers ICL World XI cricketers Chandigarh Lions cricketers People educated at Westlake Boys High School Sussex cricketers Khulna Tigers cricketers People from Warkworth, New Zealand Mid West Rhinos cricketers Cricketers banned for corruption North Island cricketers Match fixers Sportspeople banned for life