The holder of CD's run scoring record was unbeaten on 108, 259 balls later and including 14 boundaries in a display of gritty determination which begs the question - is there anything this man (who can bowl, keep wickets and captain) can't do?
Opener Ingram had departed after facing the first delivery yesterday from Andrew de Boorder, feathering it to wicketkeeper Gareth Hopkins without adding to his overnight score of 139 on a morning when rain interrupted play briefly.
Ingram didn't go on to post a double century on a driveway of a track but his ton marked the awakening of another batting maestro in the CD ranks.
It raised the possibility of what the Stags could do to oppositions if he, Sinclair, wicketkeeper Kruger van Wyk and skipper Jamie How conduct an orchestra of willows to deliver that elusive first-innings 450 mark that coach Alan Hunt is seeking from his troops.
While Sinclair celebrated his calculated knock in the dressing room, Hunt was 5km away en route to a dinner with acquaintances in the familiar confines of old hunting grounds as a first-class Auckland player.
"Look, Skip [Sinclair] did what a professional batsman does," he said, echoing Sinclair's sentiments on how the game was always going to peter out to a draw.
"The decision to bat was detrimental because it took a bit of time out so we couldn't get a lead big enough to set a target that could be challenging or one that we could chase.
"Only one team could win the game and it wasn't going to be us."
Conversely, Hunt said the Stags didn't have the firepower to knock out the Aces batsmen on a benign batting wicket.
"We only have one strike bowler [Adam Milne] to extract bounce and get it through at that pace," he said, adding if Auckland had the services of Andre Adams than they would have probably had a chance of an outright result too.
While the bowling was a challenge, he thought it was a good opportunity for some of the players to gain experience and put their hand up.
While spinner Tarun Nethula bowled well in the first innings, the wicket offered more traction to a wrist spinner than a finger one.
"We haven't been pretty but we stuck at it."
The hosts took away seven points and CD six.
"The other two games had outright results so they got 12 points but it's still early days with six more games to go.
For tomorrow's second-round Ford Cup one-day match at the same venue with the Aces, Black Cap Jacob Oram, Dutch international Peter Borren and veteran ex-Black Caps opening paceman Michael Mason return at the expense of Marty Kain, Roald Badenhorst and Greg Todd.
"We have three more bowlers and two allrounders," Hunt said but the weather forecast is ugly for tomorrow.
"Rain shortened or not, we have to give it our all because our [lost] game against Canterbury was pretty poor and we need to improve."
Northern Districts won by 241 runs and Wellington by 286 runs in the other shield games yesterday.
