Mathew Stuart Sinclair (born 9 November 1975) is a former Australian-born New Zealand

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er. He is a right-handed middle order batsman who has also opened the innings. He holds the equal world record for the highest Test score (214) by a number three batsman on debut when he opened his international career against

West Indies The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...

in 1999.

Personal life

Born in

Katherine Katherine (), also spelled Catherine and Catherina, other variations, is a feminine given name. The name and its variants are popular in countries where large Christian populations exist, because of its associations with one of the earliest Ch ...

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

, Australia, Sinclair moved to New Zealand with his mother after the death of his father in an accident when Mathew was only five years old.

Domestic career

A right-handed middle-order batsman occasionally used as an opener, he played for

Central Districts The Central Stags, formerly known as Central Districts, are a first-class cricket team based in central New Zealand. They are the men's representative side of the Central Districts Cricket Association. They compete in the Plunket Shield firs ...

from the 1995–96 season, and in a period when the New Zealand cricket authorities were actively developing their infrastructure with the aim of raising the standards of the

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

team, he played for both Academy and A teams before making his

Test Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to: * Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities Arts and entertainment * ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film * ''Test'' (2014 film) ...

debut. When batting for

against Northern Districts in 1997, he was left not out on 99 when Grant Bradburn bowled a wide down the legside that beat the wicketkeeper and went for four runs ending the game. The Central Districts team felt that this was very unsporting of Grant Bradburn, who was subsequently fined $100 for the incident.

International career

He scored 214 on his debut, against West Indies at Wellington in 1999, and followed that with 204 not out against Pakistan in the following summer. But despite this most promising of starts, Sinclair struggled to gain a permanent place in both the Test and one-day sides after disappointing scores. As a result, he was intermittently featured in the international squad, most recently being the

One Day International One Day International (ODI) is a format of cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of fifty overs, with the game lasting up to 7 hours. The World Cup, generally held every four yea ...

against the

Eden Park Eden Park is a sports venue in Auckland, New Zealand. It is located three kilometres southwest of the Auckland CBD, on the boundary between the suburbs of Mount Eden and Kingsland. The main stadium has a nominal capacity of 50,000, and is s ...

in January 2009. An injury to Michael Papps in 2004–05 saw him called into the tour of Bangladesh as a 'makeshift' opener. His preferred position in the top of the middle-order was not available at the time. He did enough on that tour to gain selection for the tour to Australia where he had mixed results in the Tests, but not enough to maintain his spot when the Australians crossed the Tasman later that summer. His form in the ODIs in Australia was sufficient to retain his place for the return series, but he lost his place after averaging 15 in the first three matches.

Retirement

In July 2013 he announced his retirement from all cricket. At 37, after 18 seasons in the Central Districts side he is the team's all-time highest run-scorer, with more than 20,000 runs across all formats and remained a solid performer to the last, averaging over 40 in 2012–13. Sinclair found the transition from a cricketer to working outside of cricket very difficult. He worked in a sports shop for eight months before being made redundant. He now works as a real estate agent. In 2020, he played club cricket in Napier.

References

External links

* *
Mathew Sinclair's Official Blog
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sinclair, Mathew 1975 births Central Districts cricketers Living people New Zealand cricketers New Zealand One Day International cricketers New Zealand Test cricketers Cricketers who made a century on Test debut Cricketers at the 2003 Cricket World Cup New Zealand Twenty20 International cricketers People educated at Palmerston North Boys' High School Australian emigrants to New Zealand Cricketers from the Northern Territory Sportsmen from the Northern Territory North Island cricketers