Vincent had a dream start to his international career

Former New Zealand opening batsman Lou Vincent has announced his retirement from all forms of cricket after finishing his contract with the Khulna Royal Bengals in the second edition of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL).

Vincent made his decision via social networking site Twitter.

“1134 games 718.5 hotels 834 planes 57 teams 3 punch ups 1 proud career 5pm 18th Feb 2013 I’m pulling stumps. Thank you all x,” Vincent said.

Vincent, who was also New Zealand’s wicketkeeper occasionally, represented his country in 23 Tests and 102 ODIs, the last of which came against Australia in December 2007.

After his final ODI, Vincent joined the defunct Indian Cricket League (ICL), upon where he was banned for representing New Zealand and it even resulted in him losing his central contract.

Vincent then started to become a freelance cricketer and spent a lot of time playing county cricket in England before heading to Zimbabwe and Bangladesh where he participated in their domestic Twenty20 tournaments.

The opening batsman also admitted to suffering from depression during his career and was under prescribed medication.

Vincent revealed that his depression has severely affected his “hunger for cricket”.

He made a dream start to his Test career in 2001, scoring 104 and 54 against an Australian bowling attack that featured such names as Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie, Brett Lee and Shane Warne.

However, the dream soon turned into a nightmare as Vincent was unable to score consistently, finishing with a total of 1,332 Test runs at an average of 34.15.

His highest Test score of 224 came against Sri Lanka in April 2005 during a match in Wellington.

Vincent also made 2,413 runs in ODIs at an average of 27.11 and played 98 first-class and 220 List A games during his career.