Former World No.1 T20I Batter, England's Dawid Malan Announces Retirement From International Cricket

In an unexpected turn of events, former World No.1 T20I batter and England international Dawid Malan announced his retirement from international cricket.

The 37-year-old batter, who is only one of two England batters to have scored centuries in all three formats of men’s cricket, was last in international action during the 2023 ODI World Cup in India, and has since been omitted from the 50-over side for England.

The swashbuckling batter boasts an impressive ODI average of 55.77 from 30 innings, with a striking rate of 97.45. But, he has failed to make the cut for the format since his outing at the World Cup last year, and has slowly disappeared in the mix.

More than any other format, Malan found major success in the shorter format, T20s, and made his own name in the same, establishing himself as a firecracker of a batter with a fiery innings of 78 from 44 against South Africa in his T20I debut in 2017.

And frome then onwards, the only way to go for Malan was up, as he put forth strong showings in the following winter’s Ashes tour to build on his momentum, and in September 2020, he reached the top of the ICC’s batting rankings for T20I cricket.

His rise wouldn’t end there though as in the following March, Malan became the fastest men’s player to reach 1000 runs in T20Is, from just 24 innings, all but one of which had been at least double-figures.

With his name well-established in the shorter format, he was a shoo-in for England squad next year in 2020, with whom he would go on to clinch the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.

Malan, in conversation with British newspaper The Times of London expounded that his only regret lies in his inability to forge his career as a Test batter.

“I took all three formats extremely seriously but the intensity of test cricket was something else — five days plus the days building up,” Malan told the Times. “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.”