“I always wanted to be a cricketer, either for Australia when I lived in Adelaide or New Zealand. After playing for the Prospect District Cricket Club, I moved to Auckland where my parents owned an ostrich farm. It was there that I learnt a lot about fitness as I would run hard to catch the ostriches,” says Vincent, with candour surprising for a cricketer.

“I think that helped me a lot in becoming a fit cricketer than I would have imagined. It was my grit that put me over the edge at that time,” adds the former Kiwi opener who now will be playing for Chandigarh Lions in the Indian Cricket League.

And that grit, of course, helped the then 23-year-old break into the New Zealand’s Test side against Australia at WACA, Perth in 2001, where he scored an entertaining century facing the likes of Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee and Jason Gilespie.

“I still remember being asked to pad up after Mathew Bell was dropped from the side for the third Test match against Australia. The pith was bouncy and Stephen Fleming, Adam Parore, Nathan Astle and I scored centuries in that test match. It added a lot to my confidence level and I played with ease thereafter,” says Vincent who at that time was described as “the best New Zealand batsman I have seen since Martin Crowe” by Ian Chappel.

But Vincent soon faded away from New Zealand cricket lovers’ memory as he found runs scarce in the coming years. So what went wrong? “I think I was too much shuffled across the batting order. I started batting in Test matches as an opener and later I shifted to the middle order. Besides that I had my share of injuries on the field which hampered my career a lot,” says Vincent. After a series of average seasons Vincent shot back into form in the tri-series in Australia in 2007, where he came as a replacement for Nathan Astle before he was selected in the Kiwi side for 2007 World Cup.