Simon Katich retires from all forms of cricket

Former Australia Test opener batsman Simon Katich 38 year old announced his retirement from T20 cricket, the only format he was playing and finally retired from all forms of cricket, quitting the first class cricket for Australia in June 2012. He was an important part of the Australia Test side.

Katich played 118 T20 matches and scored 2,483 runs at an average of 30.28 with a strike rate of 126.61. Of these, only three appearances came for Australia. The left-hander, who scored 4,188 runs with an average of 45.03 in 56 tests with 10 hundreds and scored 1,324 runs averaging 35.78 in 45 ODI. Katich had played for Kings XI Punjab in 2008 and 2009. He was also the captain of Perth Scorchers in the Big Bash League (BPL) last season.

“It’s always difficult when it comes to making these sorts of decisions,” Katich said. “I’ve obviously been in a similar situation when I made the decision to retire from first-class cricket in Australia a few years ago. Having been through that before, it helped me understand the process a bit better and the more I thought about it, I felt the time was right.

“I have a young family, I’ve had a great run and for my last game at the WACA, my home ground, to finish with a win in a successful (BBL) campaign, it’s the stuff you dream of. I’ll finish on a high and that was a big part of the reason I decided to pull up stumps.”