Lou Vincent

Lou Vincent (born 11 November 1978) is a former New Zealand cricketer and opening batsman.

He has represented New Zealand in Test match, One Day International and Twenty20 International cricket as well as playing for Auckland in New Zealand domestic cricket and Worcestershire and Lancashire in English domestic cricket.

Vincent played for Auckland from 1997 to 2008, competing in the Plunket Shield First Class competition, the Ford Trophy Domestic One Day competition and the HRV Cup Twenty20 competition.

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 Auckland in New Zealand domestic cricket.

He also considered jockeying as a career and has umpired Australian rules football.

In 2023, Vincent was living in the Southland town of Lumsden.

Vincent had also played for Central Lancashire Cricket League side Rochdale 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.

In 2006, Vincent signed for Worcestershire 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 in the C&G Trophy.

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.

Whilst playing for Ramsbottom, Vincent signed for Lancashire as a replacement overseas player for the duration of the 2008 Twenty20 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, 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 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.

In December 2013, it emerged that Vincent was being investigated by the International Cricket Council'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 ECB 40, the Bangladesh Premier League and the Champions League Twenty20.

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 imposed a lifetime ban on Vincent playing in any form of cricket, applying to sanctioned matches by the ECB, the International Cricket Council or any other national cricket federation.

On 8 December 2023, his ban from domestic cricket was lifted, it remains in place for international cricket.

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