Cricket: Who will open with Mark Richardson against Australia?

By DYLAN CLEAVER

It is a long way from the Bangabandhu to the Wooll-oongabba, something that Mathew Sinclair would be the first to acknowledge.

They are continents apart in distance and charm but, more importantly, the skills on display at the 'Gabba in less than three weeks will highlight a gulf in class from the Black Caps' just-completed series against Bangladesh.

Australia will be a proposition so different to Bangladesh on pitches devoid of plant life, it is hard to say whether the Black Caps' successful tour to the subcontinent has provided any more than a glorified net session for the rigours ahead.

The challenges will be posed by Australia's likely new ball combination of Jason Gillespie and Glenn McGrath, who have combined to take more than 650 wickets.


Facing them will be the ever-reliable Mark Richardson and ... and?

Matt Horne, Craig Spearman, Adam Parore, Matthew Bell, Lou Vincent, Sinclair, Michael Papps and Stephen Fleming have joined Richardson at the top of the order in the Aucklander's 36-test career.

At this stage Mathew Sinclair seems to have the inside running, but he told the Herald on Sunday he had been given no indication as to whether the job would be his.


"I'm not sure what's going to happen over there [Australia] in that regard," Sinclair said.

"I'm just happy to fit in with whatever's required."


Forget about counting his chickens, the Central Districts top order batsmen could be forgiven for not even entering the hen-house as he waits to learn his fate.

If there has been one victim of selectorial whimsy during the past five years, it is Sinclair. He has attracted his very own revolving-door policy. For this tour he needed an 11th-hour injury to Papps to get a late call-up.

It must be a difficult to bat when constantly on tenterhooks?

"It's not only now," Sinclair said. "It seems to always be that way with me. I missed out on [this year's tour to] England, which was such a bummer because I'd had such a fantastic year for Central Districts and the [New Zealand] A's. I didn't really know what I was going to do."


Sinclair was brought into the Black Caps for the final test of their 2003-04 domestic season and responded by scoring 74 and 21 in a well-beaten team before being dropped for the tour of England.

A late inclusion, Sinclair scored a freakishly similar double of 76 and 23 spread over two tests. He might want to cross every available appendage when the squad for Australia is announced tomorrow.

Sinclair's repeated omissions have been the cause of some lively debate of late.

Former Black Cap Dipak Patel was angered when Sinclair originally missed selection for Bangladesh, going as far to suggest personality may have played some part in the decision. But when has New Zealand cricket been strong enough to discard players on how they measure as a "good bloke"?


It is hard to imagine Sinclair won't be asked to open in Australia, even if his record against them is poor and his hands first, feet second technique leaves him more susceptible than most to the sort of seam movement Gillespie and occasionally McGrath extract.

"It's not much different than No 3 or 4," Sinclair said.

"To be honest, in South Africa I was coming in much quicker than we'd have wanted anyway."

Sinclair scored 150 (he has three scores more than 150 in tests and just three others of more than 50) in a test in the Republic.

Sinclair thinks New Zealand has a live chance of upsetting the odds.

"Australia's so different to what we've been playing on over here [in Bangladesh], but as we're both playing in the subcontinent at the moment, it's going to come down to who adapts the quickest."

- THE HERALD ON SUNDAY