Mathew Sinclair: A Tale of Two Skippys
An ode to one of cricket's greatest in-betweeners.
“It was the best of innings, it was the worst of innings, it was the age of hundreds, it was the age of ducks, it was the epoch of bulk runs, it was the epoch of form slumps, it was the season of cracking cover drives, it was the season of ugly nicks behind, it was the spring of making batting look easy, it was the winter of making batting look agonising.”
— The Opening Sentence of A Tale of Two Skippys.
IT WAS the best of innings, it was the worst of innings. So flowed the tale of Mathew ‘Skippy’ Sinclair’s international career. Tune in at just the right moments, and you’d catch tantalising glimpses of an insatiable run-machine who scored 214 on Test debut and owns every conceivable batting record for Central Districts (CD), plus a few they don’t even measure yet. Then, blink and you’ll miss it, Skippy would transform into the batting enigma who scored ducks on U19, first-class, List A, ODI, and T20I debut. All of a sudden, you’d barely recognise the classy international batter from before, more closely resembling an Under-10s tail-ender in an extended form slump. Ever-marred by contradiction and inconsistency, it was a tale of two Skippys.
Compare Sinclair’s best three innings to any batter in Test history, and he shines. Tendulkar. Viv. Hell, rewind allllllll the way to W.G. Grace. Do your worst—pick a legend out of a hat, and Sinclair’s three best innings more than stack up. 214 against Courtney Walsh’s West Indies on debut. 150 in South Africa against Pollock, Donald, and Ntini. 204* against Waqar and Saqlain. Not too shabby. However, to get the full picture, you must also watch Sinclair’s three worst innings (you’ll have plenty of candidates to select from).
Squint and Sinclair’s resume reads more like a bona fide Test legend than a forgotten bit-player from New Zealand’s Cricketing Dark Ages. On pure talent, he should be remembered in the same discussions as Crowe, Williamson, Taylor, and Turner as one of New Zealand’s finest-ever batters. Yet, that isn’t the company Sinclair keeps—far from it. Instead of waltzing into a cushy backroom gig, as would have befitted his talents, Skippy found himself filing for unemployment benefits weeks after retiring in 2013, before going on to work as a real estate agent.
So, to relitigate a question that has had Kiwi cricket fans tearing their hair out for decades, where did it all go wrong for Mathew Sinclair? How did he end up as a statistical curiosity—one of cricket’s great in-betweeners—despite having the talent to be a Test legend?
Let’s rewind to the very beginning.
1993-1999: The Ascension
Sinclair’s teammates didn’t have to dig especially deep to come up with his nickname: Skippy. If you need an explainer, Sinclair was born in the Northern Territory of Australia, relocating to New Zealand at age five, and came to cricketing prominence at a time when Skippy the Bush Kangaroo was still culturally relevant. On the vast sliding scale of cricketing nicknames, it’s slightly more creative than, say, Haydos or JL, but a far cry from Whispering Death or White Lightning.
Still, as a professional cricketer, you could do worse than to earn a nickname that denotes you’re Australian—particularly during that era, when Australia was the dominant cricketing force. Whether we wanted to admit it or not, there was a prevailing feeling in New Zealand cricket that Sinclair must be good—after all, he’s Australian, all they do is produce Test batters who average 50. They can afford to discard the Loves, Laws, Bevans, and Hodges of the world, all of whom would have walked into the New Zealand XI throughout the 90s and 00s. Finally, we had our hands on one.
At high school, Sinclair was coached by former first-class cricketer Alec Astle (Todd Astle’s father; no relation to Nathan) and ascended to the Palmerston North Boys High School (PNBHS) First XI by 15. He’d eventually go on to vice-captain PNBHS and win the Retemeyer Brothers Trophy for scoring 122 against Auckland Grammar. Even among First-XI competition, Sinclair’s talents shone through, as, per the PNBHS Sports Hall of Fame, “...coach Alec Astle predicted he had the ability and mental attributes to reach the highest level of the game.” Prescient.
Skippy’s First-XI exploits earned him selection for Manawatu in the 1993/94 Hawke Cup, still just 18, where he scored 66 on debut against Bay of Plenty, playing against men. A debut for CD-U20 followed later that year, scoring 135* first up and racking up 608 runs at 46.7 across the next two seasons, including an impressive 105 against Canterbury-U20, led by Shane Bond and Chris Martin.
Sinclair continued to climb quickly through the ranks, appearing for the CD Second-XI the following season, where he fared solidly, scoring 272 runs at 45.3, including 115 against ND Second-XI. In between Second-XI games (literally, he played on back-to-back days), Sinclair made his List A debut, though it was short-lived, scoring a 3-ball duck. He’d have to wait another 11 months to get off the mark in List A cricket, scoring a tortured 17* (70) to help CD chase 143.
A week after the Second-XI tournament concluded, having evidently impressed the right people, Sinclair made his first-class debut for Central Districts, mere months after his 20th birthday. Like his List A debut, Skippy’s first-class career didn’t get off to a promising start. He was bowled by Stu Roberts for golden duck against Canterbury—a feat he’d later replicate on ODI and T20I debut, having also scored ducks in his first U19 ODI and his first List A match. Central cruised to an innings victory in that game, meaning Sinclair had to wait a little longer to open his first-class account. That opportunity came a fortnight later when Sinclair scored 27 against Auckland. However, Sinclair only featured once more that year, ending his maiden first-class season with 39 runs at 9.75.
Appropriately, we then got our first glimpse of Sinclair in Black against his country of birth, featuring for New Zealand U19 against Australia U19 in a series that also included such names as Brad Haddin, Dave Hussey, Nathan Bracken, and Craig McMillan. Sinclair had a mixed tour, kicking things off with 106* against Tasmania U19, before scoring 53 and 46* in NZU19s' opening Test victory, and 81 in their win in the third ODI. However, all up, Sinclair only averaged 20.6 across the three unofficial Tests and 30.3 for the ODI series, scoring a golden duck in the first ODI and a pair of ones in the third Test to foreshadow the feast or famine scoring pattern that defined his career.
Still, the experience proved invaluable for Sinclair’s development, as he went from strength to strength the following year. While he struggled in his first complete List A season, averaging 25 and striking at 49, Sinclair finished the 96/97 Plunket Shield season with the third most runs, scoring 722 at 48 from eight matches, including his maiden first-class hundred, 189 against Wellington. In that sense, Sinclair began as he intended to continue, converting his first hundred into a big one. Remarkably, nine of Sinclair’s first 12 first-class hundreds were scores of 150+, showing that, once he got set, he was nigh impossible to dislodge. To cap off his summer, Sinclair got his first taste of facing an international attack, top-scoring with 67 as CD played Sri Lanka in a 50-over warm-up game.
That winter, Sinclair began his love affair with batting in South Africa, as he was picked in a New Zealand Academy side that also featured familiar names like Vettori and McMillan. Sinclair enjoyed a decent tour, averaging 40.5 with a top score of 46* on the List A leg, and getting starts in almost every first-class innings, for returns of 4, 35*, 37, 45, 59, and 5*.
To kick off the 97/98 season, Sinclair played for Central Conference in the short-lived, ill-conceived Shell Conference first-class competition, which pitted Northern Conference (Auckland + Northern Districts), Central Conference (Wellington + Central Districts), and Southern Conference (Canterbury + Otago) against an international side (variously, Bangladesh, in their first year of international cricket, Pakistan A, and England A) in a single round-robin format. Sinclair was Central Conference’s top scorer in all three seasons the competition ran, scoring 203 runs at 50.7 in 1997, including 95 against Bangladesh and 41 and 64 in the final, 285 runs at 40 in 1998, including 81 against Pakistan A, and 289 runs at 72.5 in 1999.
Oddly, in August 1998, Sinclair was also credited as playing for the Netherlands A vs India A, where he scored 53 and, apparently, bowled 32 overs 84/0. It’s the only time (that I can find, at least) that Sinclair played for Netherlands A. I can find almost nothing else about this curiosity of a match, aside from a scorecard listing one MS Sinclair at number 5. If anyone has any further information, please share it in the comments.
Sinclair continued his solid returns in the Plunket Shield, finishing with the seventh most runs in 97/98: 321 at 40, topped off with 51 against Zimbabwe in a 50-over warm-up game. This was a position Sinclair rarely ceded. In contrast to his international inconsistency, Sinclair was an ever-reliable first-class performer: no one has scored more runs (9,148) or centuries (27) for a single NZ province than Sinclair did for Central Districts, with daylight between him and second place.
Overall, only Michael Papps (11,463) has scored more runs than Sinclair in NZ domestic first-class history, and, in terms of average, he is well clear of anyone not named Kane Williamson among the top 10.
Sinclair has scored the 10th most first-class runs of any New Zealand batter, at a better average than everyone ahead of him on the list except for Martin Crowe and Glenn Turner.
In fact, Sinclair has the sixth-best first-class average of any New Zealand batter (min. 3,000 runs) full stop.
He finished in the top 10 among domestic first-class run scorers ten times across his career, including four seasons atop the charts (only Bert Sutcliffe, with six, did so more often).
Please, try not to tear your hair out if you’re contrasting those numbers to Sinclair’s international performances.
The first of these chart-topping seasons came in 98/99. After kicking off the season with 52 against India, led by Harbhajan Singh, in a tour match for CD, Sinclair scored 463 runs at 154 to lead Central to their first outright Plunket Shield title in over a decade. Sinclair banged the door down with scores of 166* against Auckland, led by Kyle Mills, and 203* against Northern Districts, led by Daryl Tuffey, before, fittingly, being 10* when Central secured the title.
To underscore Sinclair’s significance to CD’s cause, they won 10 trophies across his career: three first-class titles (98/99, 05/06, and 12/13), three List A titles (00/01, 03/04, and 11/12), and two T20 titles (07/08 and 09/10). He was the top season run-scorer for two of those three first-class titles, and the sixth and eighth top run-scorer for their List A titles in 03/04 and 11/12, respectively. Likewise, Sinclair was the fifth-highest run scorer for Central’s Super Smash title in 09/10. Put simply, CD was invariably in title contention when Sinclair was in the runs (as he often was). Notably, Sinclair wasn’t as dominant in finals, averaging 37 from four first-class finals, 29 from eight List A finals, and 16.5 from two T20 finals, reflecting his struggles to adjust to higher levels.
For now, though, Sinclair received more opportunities on the fringes of the international side. First, he played for New Zealand A against South Africa, scoring 14 and 1. Next, Sinclair was called up to face England A, scoring 182 and 44 for the North Island and adding 61 and 44 for NZA. In between fixtures, Sinclair also featured for NZA against the West Indies, top-scoring with a fighting 38 (94) in the first innings. Only one other batter passed 20, as the A side was brushed away for 140 by a potent West Indies attack.
Thanks to this run of form, two days later, Sinclair received a call from Sir Richard Hadlee: “We’ve got some great news for you. Congratulations, you’re in the next Test squad against West Indies.” A famous debut soon followed.
1999-2001: The Arrival
Having cracked his first national squad, Sinclair was still forced to wait, sitting out the first Test as NZ cruised to a nine-wicket victory on the back of a career-best 27/7 from Chris Cairns. However, when Matt Horne broke his finger trying to hook Franklyn Rose, Sinclair’s opportunity arrived. To say he took it would be an understatement.
Boxing Day, 1999. 447 balls and the best part of nine hours later, Sinclair had posted an unforgettable 214, which still stands as the third-highest score by a Test debutant ever, bested only by Jaques Rudolph’s 222* and Reginald Foster’s 287. What a Christmas present.
After winning the toss, Brian Lara reversed his decision from the first Test and elected to field. Though it’s not as famous as Nasser’s decision to bowl first at the Gabba in 2002, I’m sure Lara regrets it no less. Batting at number three, Sinclair entered at 33/1 when Reon King dismissed the former New Zealand coach, Gary Stead. He would not depart for another 135 overs. Sinclair took apart the West Indian bowling attack, headlined by Courtney Walsh, to score a sublime double hundred. While Walsh was closer to the end of his Test career than the beginning by 1999, he still headed into that Test 7th on the ICC rankings. In 2000, he took 66 Test wickets at 18.7—statistically the best year of his career. He was still Courtney Walsh—there was never a good time to face him. Based on his experiences that day, Sinclair might tell you otherwise, unsure of what all the fuss was about. New Zealand ultimately won by an innings and 105 runs.
Sadly, this innings came to haunt Sinclair, unable to live up to the lofty expectations he set for himself from the get-go. To this day, Sinclair’s Cricinfo bio begins: “If ever the weight of two double-centuries scored so early in an international career—two in the first 12 Tests—has become a yoke, then that is the case for Mathew Sinclair.” Understatement alert!
But, for now, it was pure jubilation. Watch out, Test cricket: Mathew Sinclair had arrived.
Despite his breakthrough knock, Sinclair didn’t remain in the side for the subsequent ODI series against the West Indies. Sinclair later recalled that he felt “left in the lurch” by this decision, adding, “...maybe if I was given an opportunity to play the ODIs after that Test match debut, then it could’ve given me a lot more confidence to being comfortable in that environment rather than waiting for a certain amount of time and then getting back into it again.” You can understand why Sinclair was frustrated, being eager to strike while the iron was hot. In the selectors' defence, New Zealand won that ODI series 5-0, and Sinclair’s List A form was nothing special, averaging 29 and striking at 60 domestically that year.
More than anything, it appears this exclusion dented Sinclair’s self-belief that he belonged in international cricket—a mental wound from which he never entirely healed. Shortly after retiring, Sinclair explained: “I felt like every game I was picked was a do-or-die situation. If I didn't score runs, I'd be dropped. My first-class record is second to none—people would say, 'why can't you do that at international level?" Maybe I could have had more support to build my self-confidence.” It’s not an unreasonable point from Sinclair, and one that, thankfully, we have learned from in New Zealand cricket since: contrast the treatment and endless opportunities that, say, Henry Nicholls has received with Sinclair’s handling. What could Sinclair have achieved with the same level of total backing and support that Nicholls received? Sadly, we’ll never know.
Instead, Sinclair had to bide his time for several months, with his next international opportunity coming against his homeland, Australia. It did not go well. In between times, Sinclair returned to CD to post List A scores of 27, 54, 93, 101, 0, 2, 0, plus a first-class 102 against Otago. You’ll struggle to find a more quintessentially Sinclair run of scores. Feast and famine. Yin and yang. Everything in perfect alignment.
Still, those back-to-back 50s and a hundred were enough to earn Sinclair his ODI debut in the fourth match of the six-game series, with Australia leading 2-0 after the first game in Wellington was washed out. Sinclair replaced Craig Spearman, who was in the middle of a horror run, scoring 0, 0, 5, 0, 2. It was time for a change, but Sinclair couldn’t break the cycle. Far from the lofty heights of his Test debut, Sinclair’s ODI debut was a disaster. Cricket has a funny way of humbling you like that. Opening the innings in pursuit of 350, Damien Fleming dismissed Sinclair for a golden duck, caught behind by Adam Gilchrist. The following match was barely better. This time, Sinclair lasted four balls and made it to the second over before Fleming again dismissed him, LBW. At that point, Sinclair’s most recent List A scores read 0, 2, 0, 0, 0—sucked into Spearman’s vortex of horror. In the final ODI, Sinclair finally got off the mark, scoring 19 as New Zealand chased 192 to secure a consolation victory. Third time’s the charm? It was the first time in 9 ODIs that both New Zealand openers reached double digits.
The subsequent Test series was equally calamitous, as Australia cruised to a 3-0 victory. Sinclair didn’t crack double digits in the first two Tests (8, 6, 4, 0), and fared only slightly better in the third with returns of 19 and 24. Between the first two Tests, Sinclair played for CD in a tour match, scoring 3 and 75 against Fleming, Miller, Kasprowicz, and Lee, to prove he was at least physically capable of scoring runs against Australian bowlers, if not mentally. The Australian spinners troubled Sinclair, with Colin Miller dismissing him three times and Warne snaring him once, too. Sinclair averaged just 10 for the series, though he was far from alone and never got much of a platform to work with, as New Zealand’s openers, Matt Horne and Craig Spearman, averaged 7.3 and 17.5, respectively.
By now, four months into his international journey, we had been introduced to both sides of Sinclair: the classy run machine and the batter who looked like he’d struggle to buy a run at a track meet. It was a pattern fans became painfully accustomed to. A tour of Zimbabwe and South Africa followed, which went some way to rebuilding Sinclair’s confidence. Sinclair again dominated the tour games, scoring 42 and 100* against the Zimbabwe President’s XI and 86 against Zimbabwe A. In the Tests proper, he chipped in with 12, 43*, 44, and 35* as New Zealand cruised to comfortable victories, finding himself not out as New Zealand hit the winning runs on both occasions.
With South Africa up next, Sinclair produced arguably his finest innings, becoming the first New Zealander to score a hundred against South Africa since their Test re-admission. Serendipitously, the last New Zealander to score a hundred against South Africa before that was also a number three batter with the surname Sinclair: former New Zealand captain Barry Sinclair (no relation), who scored 138 in Auckland in 1964. M Sinclair kicked off the SA leg of the tour with 249 runs at 62.2 from three first-class matches, including twin fifties (86 and 51) against Boland (the team, not Scott).
Unfortunately, Sinclair failed twice in the first Test, as New Zealand followed on and lost by five wickets. The second Test didn’t start much better, with New Zealand losing the toss and being inserted. After starting at a snail’s pace—Spearman scored 16 (72) and Richardson 26 (76), desperate to see off the new ball—Sinclair came to the crease at 43/1, 22 overs in. Throughout his innings, he rarely found a stable partner, with the score falling to 101/4 shortly after lunch and 206/7 by the end of day one, with Sinclair 88* overnight. Thankfully, he received vital lower-order support from Shayne O’Connor, who stuck around for 20 (92), the next morning, before Sinclair finally fell to an Allan Donald slower ball, lobbing a meek catch to midwicket on 150 out of NZ’s 298. Sinclair scored more than half his team’s total against Donald, Pollock, Ntini, and Kallis; a masterpiece of an innings with the difficulty set to 11. South Africa still won by seven wickets.
Sadly, Sinclair again followed feast with famine, scoring 18 and nine back home against Zimbabwe on Boxing Day. Having been dropped for New Zealand’s victorious 2000 Champions Trophy campaign, Sinclair was recalled to the ODI side against Zimbabwe but failed to make a mark in a series loss. Sinclair then returned to play four first-class games for CD, racking up 372 runs at 74.4 from, including 145 against Auckland. Only Chris Harris (113) and Kyle Mills (606 runs at 101—and yes, that Kyle Mills) averaged more than Sinclair that first-class season.
Next up, Pakistan were in town, and Sinclair scored the last of his three hundreds in only his 12th Test. For once, Sinclair didn’t even have to fight his way into the side, skipping the A team warm-up game where Pakistan were skittled for 100. Despite that, Pakistan dominated the first Test, winning by 299 runs, with Sinclair scoring a gritty 34 (115). In the second Test, New Zealand were inserted to bat but got off to a strong start, with Sinclair coming to the crease after a rare hundred-run opening stand. He’d remain there until the end of the innings. Waqar delivered 34 overs and Saqlain a marathon 48, but Sinclair overcame them, scoring 204* to go with 50* in the second innings, for a match aggregate of 254 runs, undismissed. In fairness, it was a flat Lancaster Park pitch, with Mohammad Yousuf scoring a double ton in reply, and Inzy and Saqlain passing 100, too, on the way to a draw. Hey, you still have to score them.
This kicked off a mini purple patch for Sinclair, though it proved fleeting. After again being dropped from the ODI team following the Zimbabwe series, Sinclair earned a recall first for a home series against Sri Lanka, before travelling with an understrength ODI team for a tri-series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Sinclair made the most of the opportunity, scoring 60, 117, 9, and 118* to notch his only two ODI hundreds in five days.
At this point, Sinclair should have been on top of the cricketing world. He averaged 52.5 after 12 Tests with two double tons and a 150, and 38.8 after 13 ODIs, having just broken through with consecutive hundreds. He’d already topped the Plunket Shield run-scoring charts, showing a proclivity for scoring big hundreds, and boasted innings of 182 against England A, 100* against the Zimbabwean President’s XI, and 81 against Pakistan A. At 26, he should have been entering his prime as an international batter, perfectly poised to kick on to greater heights and lead New Zealand’s batting for the next five to 10 years. Instead, this was Sinclair’s peak, as one of the greatest starts to a Test career fizzled out equally swiftly. Sinclair would play international cricket intermittently for nine more years, but never scored another hundred.
2001-2003: In-and-Out of the Side
In the true spirit of the early 2000s, New Zealand followed one ODI tri-series with another, this time against India and Sri Lanka. It couldn’t have been a greater contrast to the previous tri-series for Sinclair, marking the beginning of another horror run. He reached double digits only twice in six innings, scoring 1, 0, 21, 36, 1, 3. It’s not like Sinclair was bereft of form, either. On either side of this series, he enjoyed a record-setting stint with Cleethorpes in Yorkshire League Cricket. Sinclair was utterly dominant, scoring five centuries across his stint, including a double hundred on debut and three hundreds in three days at one point in his stint, on his way to scoring 1,195 runs at 91.9 and leading Cleethorpes to 100 league points for what was then the first time in their history. Had Sinclair not missed nine matches with international duties, he was odds-on to break David Byas’ then-record for most runs in a season with 1,394. In an apt piece of symmetry, Martin Crowe flirted with breaking that same record 20 years earlier, when he scored 1,349 runs at 90 playing in the same league.
Back in the international arena, Sinclair’s form evaporated as New Zealand travelled to Australia for a Stephen Fleming-masterminded 0-0 drawn series. You’ll never guess what happened: Sinclair flattered to deceive in the warm-up games, scoring 57 against a Queensland Academy side that featured a young Mitchell Johnson, Nathan Hauritz, and James Hopes, 145 against the ACT President’s XI, and 80 against Queensland, led by Andy Bichel, Michael Kasprowicz, and Andrew Symonds. However, if you clad Sinclair in Test whites and told him he was playing *shudders* Australia, he looked like a completely different player. Skippy again struggled against the Aussies, falling twice for single digits and three times in the 20s. With Lou Vincent debuting during this series and impressing with a hundred first up at the WACA, Sinclair suddenly found his spot at number three under imminent threat.
Two home Tests against Bangladesh followed, but with New Zealand cruising to two innings victories, Sinclair didn’t get much chance to impress, scoring 7 in the first Test, before sliding down to number six in the second, scoring 19*. To that point, Sinclair had batted all but two of his Test innings at number three, but the slide down to number six proved an ill omen. Lou Vincent took Sinclair’s spot at three and kept it for the next year, with that Test being Sinclair’s last for 16 months, and his last as a regular in the side. Naturally, when Sinclair returned to first-class cricket, he immediately scored 161 and 171 in his next two matches. Too little, too late. Where were those runs when they really mattered?
Despite his poor returns against Australia, Sinclair still averaged 43.2 in Test cricket after 18 appearances at that point, and 47.9 in 2001. Unfortunately for Sinclair, 2001 was a productive year for many New Zealand batters, with Mark Richardson, Craig McMillan, and Stephen Fleming all scoring more runs than Sinclair at higher averages, while Nathan Astle, who was never getting dropped, was also averaging 40+ in 2001, and Lou Vincent had just burst onto the scene with a hundred at the WACA. Sinclair was the odd man out, picking the wrong time to go eight straight innings without a 50.
Sinclair failed to return to the Test side in 2002, but made a brief ODI return during...you guessed it...another tri-series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka. He struggled to make an impression, scoring two ducks and failing to pass 30 in four innings, but was included in New Zealand’s 2002 Champions Trophy squad anyway, forcing his way into the XI at the 11th hour by scoring 108 (112) against Zimbabwe in a warm-up fixture. He repaid the faith by scoring 18 in the opening loss to Australia and 70 in a dead rubber against Bangladesh.
Shortly after, Sinclair found himself turning out for Malborough in the Hawke Cup, named for Lord Hawke, and the Chapple Cup, named in honour of former New Zealand Test captain, Murray Chapple. For those who don’t know, the Chapple Cup is the annual men's white-ball tournament that brings all eight CD District Associations together: Taranaki, Manawatū, Nelson, Marlborough, Horowhenua-Kāpiti, Hawke's Bay, Whanganui and Wairarapa, while the Hawke Cup is a non-first-class competition for New Zealand's district associations. In the Hawke Cup, Sinclair contributed 93 and 66; in the Chapple Cup, he smashed 122* (116), being simply far too good for the lower standard.
Sinclair remained in the team for a 7-match ODI series against India, scoring 52 for Central in a three-day warm-up match and a match-winning 78 in the second ODI, but also contributing two ducks and another single-figure score throughout the series. Somehow, despite averaging 28 and striking at 55 (!) in ODIs in 2002, Sinclair stayed in the squad for the 2003 World Cup, but only cracked the XI against Bangladesh for a DNB in a comfortable win.
Over the next six years, Sinclair added another 21 ODIs and four more half-centuries, but never made himself a fixture in the team. All told, Sinclair scored eight ducks in 50 ODI innings, with 21 total single-digit scores (42%). It never really worked for him in the format, ending his ODI career with 54 appearances, an average of 28.3, and a strike rate of 62.5. Among batters with at least 1,000 ODI runs, that gives Sinclair the 42nd worst ODI strike rate ever, in the same ballpark as Graham Gooch, Sunil Gavaskar, and Desmond Haynes. Sinclair is the only batter among the bottom 50 on this list to play for a traditional Test nation and debut this millennium (there are a few associate players, like Bau at 38, who debuted in the 2000s with lower strike rates).
Despite his ODI struggles, Sinclair put his head down to score 547 runs at 45.6 during the 01/02 Plunket Shield season, the seventh most, and kicked off the 02/03 season with a 79 and a 60. That was enough for Sinclair to earn a recall to the Test side for the 2003 tour to Sri Lanka, but he couldn’t repay the faith. For a change, Sinclair was quiet in the warm-up games, scoring 29 and 22, before adding 17, 1, 0, and 3 in the Tests. Sinclair fell twice to Murali, whom he later described as the best Test bowler he faced: “The freaky nature with which he could get the ball to turn the other way, he had me in stitches trying to pick it.” Hot take, Skippy!
Sinclair’s comeback was therefore short-lived, and he was straight back out of the side for the following series against India.
2003-2006: International Wilderness
The period that followed, perhaps more than any other, underscores the utter, hair-pulling frustration of Sinclair’s career. Following in the footsteps of Graeme Hick (first-class average 52; Test average 31), Mark Ramprakash (first-class average 53; Test average 27), and many other domestic-legends-come-international-underachievers, Sinclair cemented himself as the ultimate cricketing in-betweener. He was far too good for the domestic game, too good even for A-Team cricket, but never consistent at the highest level. So, as he often did after being dropped, Sinclair followed international failure with domestic success. When Sinclair next played first-class cricket for CD that December after again being dropped from the Test team, he immediately scored 62, 52, 1, 127*. Please refrain from tearing your hair out.
Before that, though, he played for New Zealand in the Hong Kong Sixes and was the tournament’s equal-third top-scorer, racking up 125 runs at a cool average of 125 and a strike rate of 312.5. Yeah, not bad. Back on the domestic circuit, Sinclair scored 40* (35) in that year’s domestic List A final, though Ross Taylor stole the show, adding 107 for the North Island against the South Island, as NZC briefly tried to get a State of Origin fixture off the ground.
Overall, he scored 457 runs at 50 during the 2003/04 Plunket Shield, adding 99 when South Africa faced CD in a warm-up match, against an attack featuring Andre Nel, Albie Morkel, and Nicky Boje. Naturally, Sinclair returned to the New Zealand A side to face Sri Lanka A, piling on the runs with scores of 133 and 50 in two unofficial Tests.
That weight of runs saw Sinclair recalled for the third Test against South Africa in 2004, ending a 10-month international absence, where he top-scored with 74 after Craig McMillan went down with food poisoning. Though he didn’t know it, this period proved to be Sinclair’s last hurrah in international cricket, as he scored his final three Test fifties over his following four Tests.
Those would have to wait, as instead, Sinclair returned home to take on Sri Lanka A for New Zealand A in two List A games, scoring 31 and 107. Even so, this form wasn’t enough to earn Sinclair a place on the tour to England that followed; rather, Sinclair next travelled with New Zealand A to South Africa. Before that, though, Sinclair did find himself in England, as he played a season for Swardeston in the East Anglia Premier League. Although they finished sixth that season, it was through no fault of Sinclair’s, as he scored a hundred on debut and racked up 698 runs at 63.45 overall, to once again utterly dominate a lower level of cricket and top the averages for that season.
Back in black and Sinclair dominated the A tour to South Africa too, scoring 115 in the first unofficial test and 268 in the third, rescuing New Zealand A from 8/2. This is what I mean when I say Sinclair was a cricketing in-betweener. He consistently performed in domestic cricket and is the all-time leading run-scorer and century-maker for CD. He dominated for New Zealand A, piling on hundred after hundred. At the lower levels, like playing for Cleethorpes, Swardesdon, or turning out in the Hawke Cup, Sinclair was a man among boys. He ticked all the selection boxes. Yet, at a certain point, these domestic feats acted as a mirage, and continuing to select Sinclair internationally became the definition of insanity: repeating the same action and hoping for a different outcome.
For now, though, Sinclair’s dominance against South Africa A earned him a recall to the Test side in Bangladesh, scoring (you’ll never anticipate this) 71 against the BCB President’s XI in the warm-up match, and adding 76 and 23 in the Tests as New Zealand won both by an innings.
Sinclair, therefore, remained with the side to travel to Australia, before his troubles against the Baggy Greens again reared their heads. This time, the series actually started promisingly, as Sinclair top-scored with 88 against New South Wales, led by Brett Lee, Stuart Clark, and Stuart MacGill, with no other batter passing 26. The first Test went well too, as Sinclair scored the last of his Test fifties at the Gabba, 69, with Jacob Oram the only other New Zealand batter to pass 30, scoring 124*. From there, it was a familiar story. It was all downhill for Sinclair, both in this series and for his career more generally, adding a duck in the second innings as New Zealand were skittled for 76, before scores of 0 and 2 followed in Adelaide, ending Sinclair’s Test career for two more years. Just three weeks later, as soon as he got back to his comfort zone at CD, Sinclair scored 104, 0, 17, 95. Make it make sense.
By now, after 25 Tests, Sinclair’s average had plummeted to 36.9, with further to fall. Sinclair may still hold a vendetta against the schedule-makers for that. He can count himself unfortunate that a third of his Test appearances to that point had come against peak Warne/McGrath-era Australia, arguably the best Test side ever, against whom he averaged 14. Recently, four years between series has become the standard for Aus vs NZ affairs (the most recent clashes being Feb 2016 -> Dec 2019 -> Mar 2024 -> Dec 2027). Sinclair ran into the Aussies three times in four years, making it to double digits just four times from nine innings, and passing fifty only once.
Against every team other than Australia, Sinclair’s Test record looks perfectly reasonable: 24 Tests for an average of 40.7 with three hundreds. In another era, when we ran into the Baggy Green Juggernaut more infrequently, who knows? But across four separate series, Sinclair never figured it out against Australia, as he later acknowledged: “I struggled a lot against the Australians. I think I struggled because I viewed them as great players rather than actually looking at them as peers…. When I played against the Australians I did not average particularly well, got dropped, came back again, in and out all the time, so it made it quite hard for a bit of continuity, and that’s the way my cricket went.” All told, Sinclair played Australia 21 times across all three formats, averaging 13.3 with eight ducks and seven other single-figure scores from 29 innings (51.7%). Only once in 29 innings did Sinclair score at a strike rate of 60+ against Australia.
Following that series, Sinclair was dropped from the Test side for the fourth time, and this time, the selectors seemed determined to make it stick. A two-year absence from the Test team followed, although Sinclair did make his T20I debut during this time in the first-ever T20I. In a cruel twist of symmetry with Sinclair’s ODI and first-class debuts, Sinclair was again dismissed for a golden duck by Michael Kasprowicz. Sinclair added one more T20I, also against Australia in 2007, but never got on the board internationally in the format, dismissed by Mitchell Johnson for a four-ball duck.
Before that, Sinclair went on yet another New Zealand A tour, this time to Sri Lanka. At the risk of becoming a broken record, he dominated. Sinclair scored a pair of fifties on the List A leg, which South Africa A also played in, counting Dale Steyn and Albie Morkel among their attack. Then, in the first-class fixtures, Sinclair added 113 against an SLC Development XI and 117 in the first unofficial Test.
Back at home, Sinclair topped the run-scoring charts in 05/06 to lead CD to a Plunket Shield title, scoring 723 runs at 51.6, including 67 in the final. For a period mid-season, straddling games against Otago, Auckland, and Canterbury, Sinclair scored 121, 103*, 101, 53, and 55. Sinclair’s 05/06 season earned him the prestigious Redpath Cup, awarded yearly to “the batsman whose performances in men’s first-class cricket have been the most meritorious.”
As such, Sinclair again featured for New Zealand A (technically, New Zealand White, this time) in a quad-series in Darwin over the winter, though he struggled, with a score of 76 against India A, led by RP Singh, being Sinclair’s only contribution of note. Skippy then picked up where he left off the following Plunket Shield season, scoring 109 against Northern Districts two days before earning a recall to the New Zealand Test squad to face Sri Lanka.
I mentioned before that, around this time, continuing to select Sinclair became the definition of insanity: trying the same thing and hoping for a different outcome. After such a promising start to his Test career, failure continually begat failure. However, I want you to put yourselves in the selectors' shoes in December 2006. In light of the following facts, what would you do?
Mathew Sinclair is 31.
He has not scored a Test century for five years and 13 Tests, during which time he has averaged just 22.
He was the leading domestic first-class run scorer last season, earning the Redpath Cup, and started this season with a hundred.
Over the past three domestic List A seasons, he has been the sixth, fifth, and eighth top run scorer.
He has ranked five times in the top-10 Plunket Shield run-scorers over the past 10 seasons.
For New Zealand A recently, he has scored 133 and 50 at home against Sri Lanka A, 115 and 268 away to South Africa A, and 117 away to Sri Lanka A, plus 107 in List A cricket against Sri Lanka A.
In fact, Sinclair has dominated for NZA. In 10 appearances for the A-Team, he’s scored 990 runs at 70.7 with four hundreds. No one has scored more runs for NZA (Jamie How is second with 785), while no other batter has scored more than two hundreds for NZA.
The Black Caps’ batting has been shaky over the past two years (2005-2006). Vettori and Vincent are averaging the best part of 50, Fleming 46, and Oram and Astle are averaging either side of 40. But there have been plenty of failures: Hamish Marshall averages 33, Scott Styris 32, Brendon McCullum 28, Peter Fulton and Craig Cumming 26, James Marshall 23, Michael Papps 14, Craig McMillan 12, and Jamie How 12.
Immediately before this series, New Zealand had a mixed Champions Trophy: winning two games and losing two to escape their group but falling in the semi-finals.
The team’s last Test outing, against South Africa, was a 2-0 drubbing where Styris averaged 25, Astle 22, How 2, and Papps, Fulton, McCullum and H. Marshall between 14-16.
What do you do with a player like that? How do you handle someone who is patently too talented for domestic cricket, dominates A cricket, but can’t buy a Test run, amid a side with a shaky top order? I don’t know the correct answer—I think I probably would have picked Sinclair again, too—but unfortunately, with scores of 36, 4, 6, and 37, he failed to make enough of a mark on his Test return against Sri Lanka, and another year-long absence from Test cricket followed.
2007-2010: A Last Hurrah
You’ll never guess what happened next: Sinclair returned to the domestic scene and continued to make himself impossible to ignore. In only two first-class appearances in the 07/08 Plunket Shield, Sinclair racked up 437 runs at 145.7, including 243* against Otago, beating Martin Crowe’s then-record score for CD by a run. That earned Sinclair an ODI recall for the first time in two and a half years for a tour to South Africa, where he scored a handy 32* (23) in the first match and 73 in the third. He stayed in the XI for the subsequent series against Australia, but with scores of 2 and 14, followed by 1* and a pair of DNBs against Bangladesh, another year-long absence followed, before Sinclair played his final ODI against the West Indies in January 2009. There was no fond farewell. Sinclair ended his ODI much as it began, scoring 2 (12), as Jesse Ryder missed selection for off-field issues.
Before that, Sinclair was recalled to the Test side again after a 14-month absence, scoring 29 and 47 against Bangladesh. Sinclair was dropped in 2003 and 2006 after playing just two Tests apiece, but this time, he got a slightly extended run, remaining in the squad for the home series against England, perhaps better remembered as Fleming’s last series and Southee’s first.
Unfortunately, this was more or less Sinclair’s last gasp. In the warm-up games, against a fully-loaded England side, Sinclair struggled with 2 and 9* for the NZ Invitational XI but scored 47 for the Major Associations XI. Then, stop me if you’ve heard this one before, Sinclair cracked double digits just once in six innings in the Test series, for returns of 8, 2, 9, 39, 7, 6. A week later, Sinclair returned to CD and scored 90 and 57. Where were those runs when your international career was on the line?
To no one’s shock, another dropping followed, and with Sinclair now 33, it seemed to be for good. By now, you can probably guess the familiar pattern that followed. Say it with me: Sinclair went back and dominated domestic cricket.
This time, dominate barely does it justice, enjoying a period of supreme, cross-format form. From the 08/09 season to Sinclair’s retirement in 12/13, these were Sinclair’s returns in the Plunket Shield:
2008/9: Nine matches, 904 runs at 75.3 (top run-scorer; winner of Men’s Domestic Player of the Year).
2009/10: Nine matches, 778 runs at 59.8 (7th top run-scorer).
2010/11: Ten matches, 582 runs at 52.9 (8th top run-scorer).
2011/12: Ten matches, 809 runs at 54 (top run-scorer).
2012/13: Ten matches, 646 runs at 40.4 (13th top run-scorer).
On the List A side of things, Sinclair was also dominant, posting returns of:
2008/9: Nine matches, 532 runs at 88.7 (top run-scorer).
2009/10: Ten matches, 396 runs at 49.5 (5th top run-scorer).
2010/11: Seven matches, 257 runs at 51.4.
2011/12: Eight matches, 286 runs at 95.3 (8th top run-scorer).
2012/13: Six matches, 60 runs at 12.
During this period, he also made a one-off Hawke Cup appearance, scoring 141. As a result, Sinclair’s international career received a final addendum when he was recalled to the squad at Neil Broom’s expense for a two-Test series against Australia in 2010. Following a ten-wicket Australian victory in the first Test, Sinclair replaced Peter Ingram for the second. Unfortunately, there was to be no righting of his atrocious record against his country of birth, no F.U. to the selectors who had dropped Sinclair so often, and no reminder of his prodigious talents and what could have been. Mitchell Johnson bowled Sinclair for 11 in the first innings, before Michael Clarke, of all people, ended Sinclair’s international career in the second, trapping him LBW for 29.
2010-Present: Retirement & Beyond
And that was that for Sinclair, internationally, at least.
He continued to play for CD until the 2012/13 season and even turned out for Hawke’s Bay as a player-coach in the Chapple Cup and Hawke Cup until 2014/15, by which time he was 40. In his final two Chapple Cup appearances, both first-round exits in 11/12 and 13/14, Sinclair scored 59 and 73*. His final Hawke Cup season, in 2014/15, provided a fitting final chapter for Sinclair, dominating the lower level to return 309 runs from four matches, with two hundreds and a cool average of 77.2.
From those eye-watering early heights, the final summation of Sinclair’s Test career read:
33 matches played (56 innings), 1,625 runs (three hundreds) at a disappointing average of 32.05.
That’s a far cry from Sinclair’s overall first-class record:
188 matches played (319 innings), 13,717 runs (36 hundreds) at an average of 48.64.
And the more you divide his career up, the stranger it seems. For NZA, Sinclair’s record read:
10 matches played (15 innings), 990 runs (four hundreds) at an average of 70.7.
It’s a record Sinclair probably doesn’t want to own, as it meant he was constantly fighting for his spot, rather than owning a settled position in the Test side, but no one has scored more runs or more hundreds for New Zealand A than Sinclair.
If you fold in appearances for other ‘A’ representative New Zealand teams (i.e. New Zealand White and New Zealanders), Sinclair’s record reads:
21 matches played (38 innings), 2,062 runs (six hundreds) at an average of 60.64.
Across two stints in English club cricket, Sinclair scored 1,195 runs at 91.9 for Cleethorpes and 698 runs at 63.45 for Swardesdon.
In the Hawke Cup, from his debut in 1993/94 to his retirement in 2014/15:
14 matches played (13 innings), 840 runs (three hundreds) at an average of 64.61.
For Central Districts, Sinclair will go down as arguably their greatest ever servant, with his record reading:
119 matches played (208 innings), 9,148 runs (27 hundreds) at an average of 51.58.
In all other first-class appearances not for either New Zealand, New Zealand A, or Central Districts, including tour matches, and games for the North Island, Central Conference, NZ Invitation XI, Major Associations XI, and more, Sinclair was constantly among the runs:
24 matches played (41 innings), 1,925 runs at an average of 53.47.
So, why the disconnect? Why is Sinclair’s record imperious at all other levels, but meek at the top level? Clearly, if you saw any of his Test hundreds, talent wasn’t the issue. Sinclair had that in spades—arguably too much. Sinclair wouldn’t exactly be the first player to dominate first-class cricket and struggle at the top level of the game—think Mark Ramprakash, Graeme Hick, and Michael Bevan (first-class average 57; Test average 29), for just a few other examples. Sometimes, technical flaws exist in a player’s game that aren’t exposed at the lower levels, but preclude them from succeeding in Test cricket. In particular, Sinclair struggled against spin, averaging 20 from four Tests in Asia, regularly falling to Miller and Warne against Australia, and naming Murali the toughest bowler he faced. In a post-retirement interview, Sinclair posited, “...when you’re not exposed to those conditions, it makes it very, very hard. It’s a known fact that we struggle in sub-continent conditions because we don’t face a lot of spinners here in New Zealand because our wickets don’t turn.”
While I think technical deficiencies partially explain Sinclair’s international woes, it’s far from the whole story. Playing a third of his Tests against Australia also didn’t help, nor did batting at number three behind consistently shaky opening partnerships. I don’t have the statistics, but I’d love to know how often Sinclair came to the crease when the score worse than 10/1. Very often, I’d wager.
However, I think the real answer is that mismanagement, confidence issues, and mental struggles played the most significant roles in Sinclair’s international struggles. It’s worth remembering that, however frustrated many NZ cricket fans may have been at watching this play out, no one was more frustrated than Sinclair himself. In Skippy’s own words:
“I also felt I was a little bit mismanaged through my early stages, so that made it really difficult, and when I mean mismanaged, I mean sort of just trying to live up to the expectations of a professional cricket player playing day in, day out. As you see, thinking like that, that I could go out and score double centuries every time, and it doesn’t work like that. Situations are different every day, and I guess form is a big part of that as well and confidence, and when those two things aren’t working right, then you’ve got a recipe for disaster…
…I think nowadays you’ve got players' associations involved and I think that has changed the whole dynamics for professional cricketers. Back then, we didn’t have that, so basically you were just handed a contract and said, “Here, you either take it or leave it.” Not only that, but also having a support structure around me for my cricketing career, having a proper manager that would actually sort of see me through to possibly life after cricket or looking at my next contract or actually looking at other areas to improve my game.
The other thing I talk about being mismanaged is actually being comfortable in a cricket environment. You tend to find it can be quite a selfish environment. Yes, it is very much a team game, but it’s all based around an individual’s performance. Now, my job was to score runs. If I wasn’t scoring runs, well, then I got dropped, and I guess the rotation policy in our selection back then was very, very brutal. You either scored or you are out, and that, for me, made it very, very uncomfortable, so that’s where I would also put the mismanagement part.”
Constantly being dropped, as Sinclair was five times throughout his Test career, clearly played havoc with his confidence and sense of belonging, as he freely admits: “nowadays, you have sports psychologists that come in at you to deal with those anxieties and I think for me that was quite a big thing, and that really hurt me.”
Given this, when asked what he’d do differently if he had his time over, Sinclair had clearly thought deeply about his answer, responding:
“...if I were to go back again, I’d probably find a batting mentor, so I would actually have someone whom I can talk to about how my cricket is going, someone with whom I can work out my strengths and weaknesses and I think that could help my development to be a lot better than what it was.”
How much difference this would have made will forever remain one of New Zealand cricket’s great ‘what ifs’. Confidence, a lack of support and stability, and struggling to adjust to a professional team environment: these are the recurrent themes that reappear as you read interviews with Sinclair reflecting on his career (which I’ve read at least 10 of in researching this piece), adding up to possibly New Zealand’s greatest unfulfilled batting talent.
To conclude on a positive note, in many ways, I think Sinclair’s story is a testament to just how far New Zealand cricket has evolved in terms of professionalism in the intervening years. I feel confident that, if he debuted today, Skippy’s Test record would look vastly superior, with my only doubt being whether his average would start with a four or a five. Whereas, as he describes it, Sinclair was handed a contract once a year (if he was lucky) and then left to figure the rest out, these days, the support options are far more comprehensive—just look at the bloated backroom staff most teams carry. Most likely, Sinclair would have been backed with an extended run in the side (look at players like Henry Nicholls and Tom Blundell for proof), allowing his self-confidence to blossom.
Except, he didn’t. Sinclair was good enough to average 50 in Test cricket. Instead, he averaged 32. Sinclair was good enough to score 30 Test hundreds. Instead, he scored three. Sinclair was good enough to go down as a New Zealand legend. Instead, he became a real estate agent. Sinclair was good enough that we should still be talking about him today. Instead, reading this article is probably the first time you’ve thought about him in years.
Mathew Sinclair was a run machine, Mathew Sinclair was a duck machine. In this tale of two Skippys, there was only ever one certainty: Mathew Sinclair was the ultimate cricketing contradiction.
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I also think Sinclair was unlucky to largely be picked against quality Australian and South African attacks, who can be unforgiving at the best of times. The comparisons with Hick, another first class genius totally mismanaged, are apposite.
Another fantastic post. As you say, Sinclair would’ve fitted in much better with the more nurturing environment of NZC today, where players are actually managed and looked after. It’s why someone like Darryl Mitchell can average 40+ in test matches and 50+ in ODIs. In another era, he would’ve been dropped after his first failure.