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England’s former number one ranked T20I batter, Dawid Malan on Wednesday, August 28 announced retirement from international cricket. The English batter, who is aged 37, confirmed his decision after being omitted from the upcoming white-ball series against Australia, set to commence from September 11 with three-match T20I series.
Speaking to The Times, Malan said that he had “excelled all expectations of myself in white-ball formats”, but also admitted that his inability to forge a more consistent Test career, led to this decision. “Test cricket was always the pinnacle for me growing up. At times I played well but in between just wasn’t good or consistent enough, which was disappointing because I felt I was a better player than that,” Malan said.
Intensity of Test cricket was something else: Dawid Malan
“I took all three formats extremely seriously but the intensity of Test cricket was something else: five days plus the days building up. I'm a big trainer; I love hitting lots of balls and I'd train hard in the build-up, and then the days were long and intense. You can't switch off. I found it very mentally draining, especially the long Test series that I played, where my performances dropped off from the third or fourth Test onwards," he continued.
"But, you know, on the field I always did what I felt was right to win a game for the team. I never walked off the field if I got runs not caring about whether we had won or lost. It was always about winning and I'd always question myself as to whether I'd made the right decisions on the field to do that," Malan further asserted.
Speaking with The Times, the England hard-hitter questioned what could be the best way to retire, meanwhile “but” was always the question. “What’s the best way to put it? I always felt there was a ‘but’. ‘He got runs, but . . .’ ‘He did this, but . . .’ You’d win the game, but . . . I’m not asking for sympathy but I could never quite understand why there was a ‘but’. It wore me down a bit. It’s also partly what drove me to be successful, that I felt I had to prove myself all the time and I never took anything for granted,” he said.
The 37-year-old, who played 22 Tests, 30 ODIs and 62 T20Is is one of the two England men’s batters, along with Jos Buttler to score centuries in all three international formats.
